Lloyds Banking Group has sent Andrew Tyrie an example of the letters it sent customers who owed the bank money under the name of a defunct law firm

After revelations that Britain's high-street banks issued legal letters from what appeared to be independent law firms demanding that they repay money owed to the banks, the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, wrote to the banks asking for an explanation. The letters, despite being headed with names that make them look like they are from separate law firms, were actually from the banks' in-house legal teams.In his response to Mr Tyrie, Lloyds chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said the bank had used the name of SCM Solicitors, a business purportedly based in Hove, East Sussex, because customers in financial difficulty did not respond to letters from the bank itself.Lloyds sent an example of the letters it used, published on the Parliament website.

The small print at the bottom of the letter discloses that SCM Solicitors is part of the in-house team at Lloyds. Here's Mr Horta-Osorio's letter in full:

Mr Tyrie said the sample letter seemed "calculated to mislead", and said Lloyds had not offered a satisfactory explanation of why it used the letters: "This is very concerning. The sample letter seem calculated to mislead. Lloyds failed to convince us that this was not the case, or to provide any satisfactory explanation as to why it issued letters in this form, but at least this practice has been brought to an end........Read more here