Darling to scale back bank costs

London: British chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling will scale back his estimate for the cost of bailing out Britain’s banks to no more than £10 billion (€10.99bn) from £50bn, Treasury officials said.

The reduction in the sum set aside in the Government’s accounts to pay for losses will shave about £40bn off the Treasury’s debt, now about £792bn, the officials said.

They didn’t want to be named before the formal announcement by Darling in the pre-budget report on December 9.