Government reduces Lloyds stake to below 8%

The government has now recovered over £17 billion of the £20.3 billion taxpayers injected into Lloyds during the financial crisis.

Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, said: "Selling our shares in Lloyds Banking Group and making sure that we get back all the cash taxpayers injected into it during the financial crisis is one of my top priorities as Chancellor. So I am pleased that we have continued to reduce our stake in Lloyds, and have now recovered over £17 billion for the taxpayer."

The Lloyds trading plan initially ran from 17 December 2014 to 31 June 2016. The government announced on 7 October 2016 that further sales of Lloyds shares would also be made through a trading plan.

The government had planned to make Lloyds shares available to the public, but later abandoned the sale due to "turbulent markets".

Hargreaves Lansdown has since set up a petition asking the government to reconsider its decision to cancel the public sale of Lloyds shares, stating that 374,000 people registered their interest in the shares through its firm alone.