Alistair Darling set for £30bn bank cash injection

The Government is poised to pump another £30billion of taxpayers money into the nation's ailing banks.

Chancellor Alistair Darling will this week unveil a scheme that will almost double the taxpayers' stake in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, which took over HBOS at the peak of the financial crisis last year.

The bulk of the £30billion - roughly £500 per person in Briton - will be spent on £25billion of new shares in RBS, taking the Government's holding in the company to 84 per cent.

The rest will go into Lloyds, which will also seek to raise billions of pounds from City shareholders.

In addition to the stakes taken in the banks, taxpayers are also underwriting many billions more of bad assets to protect the lenders from bankruptcy.

A major shake-up of the banking industry this week will see Mr Darling set out plans to create three new high- street banks.

The Chancellor hopes to introduce greater competition to the industry.