6.2 Lloyds Banking Group (Bank of Scotland)

Company Amount (£ million)
Airbus334
BAE Systems72
Boeing380
General Dynamics668
Lockheed Martin559
Peraton95
Rolls Royce620
Total£2,728
* The GBP amounts in this column were converted from USD amounts using the exchange rate 1 USD = 0.78861 GBP and are approximate due to rounding of the original USD amounts.

Lloyds Banking Group plc was formed by the merger of Halifax Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB in 2009 and is one of Britain’s largest banks. The Group’s operational headquarters are in London but it also has registered headquarters in Edinburgh.

Lloyds Banking Group invested £2.7 billion in seven nuclear weapons producers between January 2021 and August 2023 (see above).[1] These investments were made in the form of loans and through the underwriting of bond issuances.

Don’t Bank on the Bomb Scotland asked Lloyds Banking Group whether Bank of Scotland provides financing to any of the nuclear weapons producers listed in the table above. The bank’s Responsible Business and Inclusion unit declined to provide this, citing customer confidentiality.

Lloyd’s Banking Group’s policy

Lloyd’s Banking Group’s defence sector policy states that the group will not support businesses “involved in the manufacture, sale, trade, or stockpiling of nuclear weapons other than when these activities are undertaken in connection with the national nuclear weapons programmes of the UK, US or France”.[2] This policy applies to Lloyds’ subsidiaries, including Bank of Scotland.

This policy is not comprehensive because:

  • nuclear weapons producers are not excluded under the policy unless they are involved in the nuclear weapons programme of a non-NATO state;
  • the policy only covers lending and does not cover the Group’s asset management activities.

Action

Lloyds Banking Group should stop financing the production of weapons of mass destruction.

Please email the Group to request that its policy is strengthened so that it comprehensively excludes nuclear weapons producers from investment. You can use the template email at www.investinginchange.uk/action/lloyds/.

See also section 8 of this report which contains a step-by-step guide on how to engage with financial institutions.

NOTES

[1] S Snyder, Untenable Investments: Nuclear weapon producers and their financiers (PAX-ICAN, 2024): https://www.dontbankonthebomb.com/untenable-investments/.

[3] https://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/assets/pdfs/who-we-are/responsible-business/downloads/group-codes-and-policies/lbg-external-sector-statements.pdf.