LLOYDS Bank has backed its chief executive after he faced calls to resign over an expenses bill he ran up during an alleged fling with a former adviser to Tony Blair.
Antonio Horta-Osorio was spotted enjoying days out with Dr Wendy Piatt on a business trip to Singapore, where he represented the State-backed bank.
The pair met up at his £350-a-night room at the five star Mandarin Oriental hotel, which he booked using his Lloyds Bank address.
His bill showed he spent £3,276 on his room and on mini-bar and room service charges during his six-night stay, plus an extra £550 on two visits to the hotel spa.
Questions were raised over whether Mr Horta-Osorio’s expenses were paid by the bank, which received a £23.7 billion bailout from the UK Government during the financial crisis and is still 9.2 per cent owned by the taxpayer.
However, a spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group insisted Mr Horta-Osorio, who has been married for 25 years and has three children, had paid his own personal expenses during the Singapore trip. He added: “In this case there is no breach of our policy and the personal expenses are paid for by Antonio.”
Lloyds has refused to answer questions about his relationship with Dr Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of universities. She is not married.
Dr Piatt, who previously worked for the Institute for Public Policy Research, is understood to have travelled to Singapore to meet university chiefs and there is no suggestion she has wrongly claimed costs or expenses. Her room was paid for by the Russell Group.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here