Work and Pensions Committee chair Frank Field has hit back at Lloyds Banking Group after it questioned comments made by Field regarding its staffs’ views towards executive pensions.

In an email sent to Field on 12 July, Lloyds Banking Group public affairs director, Benedict Brogan, questioned a comment made by the chair in which he stated his “surprise” that the company had not received any complaints regarding the level of executive pension pay.

Lloyds’ executives were questioned in front of the Committee last month (20 June), after criticism that they had not done enough to pull executive pension pay in line with the rest of their workforce.

Following the hearing, Field said that Lloyds chief executive António Horta-Osório and chair of the remuneration committee, Stuart Sinclair, “claim to have heard no complaints – which seems surprising to say the least”.

Brogan said that indeed it would be surprising if not one of Lloyds 67,000 employees complained regarding executive pensions pay, and that’s Field’s comments did not represent what was said in the session and that it would be “fanciful to expect such an unanimity of feeling”.

However, in an email sent to Brogan on 15 July, Field said: “Having looked again at the transcript, I do not think that it is at all surprising that we formed that impression. For example, you will see at Q26 that I noted that I had myself received complaints, and found it surprising that these had not been raised within the bank.”

“Mr Sinclair responded, ‘I have spoken to Accord and Unite and a whole variety of folks on this and I do not see that sort of discord. Let me make the final point here, Mr Field. People like a winner, I think, and when I go out to see people who are on £22,000, £30,000 or £40,000, they see António as a winner because he brought this bank back from the brink’.”

The criticism comes after the bank’s chief executive António Horta-Osório’s contribution rate was cut from from 46 per cent to 33 per cent, while the average employer contribution rate remained between 8 to 12 per cent.

Giving evidence in front of the committee yesterday, Accord general secretary, Ged Nichols, said that his union had received some complaints regarding the comments made by Sinclair and Horta-Osório.

MPs accused Lloyds Banking Group of being “behind the curve” on the implementation of the Investment Associations (IA) guidelines on executive pensions.

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