Britain to give details of banking plan next week

By Avril Ormsby

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government is to give more details about its 400 billion pound banking rescue plan next week, Finance Minister Alistair Darling said on Saturday.

"What we are doing over the weekend is looking at the specifics, how do we implement it, and we will be making an announcement at the beginning of the week," he told BBC television in Washington where he has been attending a G7 finance ministers' meeting.

Last Wednesday's financial bail out, which followed a dramatic fall in the value of banking shares on the London stock exchange on Tuesday, was targeted at stabilizing banks and getting them lending again.

The package of measures also included a 50 billion pound cash injection, guaranteeing interbank lending by 250 billion pounds to help unfreeze wholesale markets and extending a Bank of England scheme that swaps banks' risky assets for government debt to provide 200 billion pounds of cash to the system.

Darling, writing in the News of the World newspaper this weekend, said his "extraordinary steps" were necessary to help stave off lower growth, lower living standards and fewer jobs across the country.

"I did not step in because I wanted to prop up failing banks," he wrote.

"If the banks stopped lending to people and to businesses that would have serious repercussions for our economy and every one of us."

WASHINGTON MEETING

Darling said his views were shared by finance ministers meeting in Washington this weekend to discuss a similar package in an attempt to prevent a global recession.

"That is why they agreed an 'urgent and exceptional' 5-point action plan, on a global scale," he wrote.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be traveling to Paris on Sunday for a euro zone leaders' meeting -- even though Britain is not signed up to the currency.

"He'll be meeting some of the biggest countries there and the European member states themselves will be having discussions further in the day to see what they can do to help their systems get going again," Darling told the BBC.

"We want to contribute to that process because it is absolutely essential that when you have a global problem like this, you reach solutions, and we are confident that can be done." When asked if Britain was in recession, he said the current credit crunch and high oil prices were having an impact.

"Our economy is slowing down," he said. "The key thing ... is to recognize that in the face of this slowdown we do everything we possibly can in our country and across the world to support our economies.

"This is a time when governments have to act and they need to act together ... to get through what is undoubtedly one of the most profound and significant shocks to the system we have seen in generations."