According to a new and polemic proposal produced by the Centre for Policy Studies, every taxpayer should receive £1,000 worth of shares in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds. The authors of the proposal argued that after being overrated with all bank bailouts risks, the citizens should get some benefits. In the proposal, taxpayers become bank’s stakeholders and are able to sell their shares in order to make a profit.

About 84% stake in RBS is owned by the government, which also has 43% of Lloyds. After the financial crisis in 2008 and consequent federal efforts to save the struggling banks, the government took them. Government’s stakes in RBS were bought for £45.5billion, while £20.3billlion was paid for the shareholding in Lloyds. Defendants of the idea say that if individual taxpayers have access to the shareholdings, investors won’t be able to demand a large discount. Moreover, taxpayers would only be able to sell the shares when the price offered was higher than that Government paid for them.

According to critics, once public services are being slashed, costs of administering the shares will turn into millions of pounds. Moreover, it would be necessary to educate people first in how the shares work, which would also be very expensive. The administration costs are expected be over £250million.

Though no official announcement has been published yet, sources revealed that a spokesman for the Treasury described the scheme as interesting.