THE government announced plans yesterday to reward taxpayers for the public bail-out of Lloyds Bank — but only those wealthy enough to afford shares.

It confirmed plans to sell at least £2 billion worth of shares to the public next spring.

And small investors will make 20 per cent profit in the first year of share ownership, thanks to incentives.

The first is a discount of 5 per cent on the market price of shares and the second is one bonus share awarded for every 10 purchased and held for a year — essentially 10 per cent extra free.

Lloyds was one of the banks bailed out by the Labour government in 2008 following the international financial crisis.

The taxpayer has forked out a whopping £500bn in bail-outs. The initial Lloyds bail-out cost the taxpayer £13.5bn.

The government took a 43.4 per cent share in Lloyds. It will now sell the public’s shares to private investors.