Mark has written to the Chancellor, Alistair Darling, expressing grave concern at the action of Lloyds Banking Group in giving notice that it will cease funding the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland. The charitable foundation supports groups working with some of the most vulnerable people in Scottish society. To read the letter, click here.

Mark said:

“I am urging the Chancellor to intervene to make Lloyds Banking Group see sense. It should show the same generosity to those who depend on the foundation that Lloyds TSB received from taxpayers when it hit trouble itself.

Many groups in North Edinburgh have benefited from grants made by the Foundation and I know how important the grants can be to smaller charities in particular.

It’s time that the Lloyds Banking Group remembered that it is not something set apart pursuing profit at all cost but that it owes obligations to the society to which it belongs.”

When the TSB was privatised in 1985, the Foundation was set up to distribute funding to communities rather than savers being directly compensated for losing ownership of the Bank. The Foundation received 1% of pre-tax profits under a covenant but after losses during the financial crisis the Banking Group tried to halve that.

It has now given notice that it will terminate funding the Foundation altogether in nine years time and has refused to approve the Trustees’ unanimous decision to reappoint the Chair, Christine Lenihan.

The TSB started out as a kind of credit union founded by the Reverend Henry Duncan in 1810 in Dumfries with the aim of helping local workers paid a pittance to save as much as they were able.

Mary Craig OBE, Chief Executive of the Lloyds TSB Foundation for Scotland, said :

“In breaking the Covenant now, Lloyds Banking Group has disowned its heritage. Rev Henry Duncan established the first Savings Bank to do something of lasting value for the under-privileged. He must be turning in his grave to see how the Group has treated that dignified cause, which the Foundation has tried to follow in the last 25 years”.