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Britain's biggest banks are working on a joint plan to cut bonus payouts and boost lending to small business. As political pressure grows ahead of January's bonus round, The Times has learnt that senior executives from Barclays, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Royal Bank of Scotland held discussions last week about a possible pact, writes the Times.The chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group has called on the coalition government to honour what he described as a pledge by its predecessor not to unwind the bank's controversial takeover of broken rival HBOS. Amid mounting speculation that the group could be forced to split its operations, Eric Daniels told the Financial Times that the Labour government promise he received at the time of the deal - that competition concerns would be waived - should still stand.Ireland was last night poised to nationalise its two biggest banks as the country continues to be battered by the financial crisis. The Irish government is expected to take Allied Irish Banks, the weaker of the two, into full public ownership with Bank of Ireland set to have around 85% of its shares held by the Irish government, the Independent reports.Bond traders turned on Portugal yesterday as the difference between yields on Portuguese ten-year government bonds and the equivalent German bonds widened to a euro-lifetime record of 4.81 percentage points. Spanish bonds also suffered at the hands of traders, with its "spread" over German bonds widening to a record 2.6 per cent and the cost of default insurance growing to €311,000, according to the Times.Belgium has joined Portugal, Spain and Italy on the hit list of countries that may be heading for financial crisis. The premium to insure Belgium's debts rose 5% yesterday: it now costs £155,000 to insure £10m of Belgian bonds against the possibility of default. The cost for Spain and Portugal The cost of insuring Spanish and Portuguese debt also rose again, £312,000 and £510,000 respectively, the Guardian reports.The new leader of Britain's biggest trade union warned yesterday of further industrial unrest in the bitter cabin crew dispute that once again threatens to ground British Airways jets. The Times reports that within minutes of being confirmed as the first directly elected leader of Unite, Len McCluskey said: "Watch this space, don't go on holiday." Terra Firma, the private equity owner of EMI, is understood to have received a number of approaches for the Odeon cinema chain from private equity groups, The Daily Telegraph has learnt. One approach is said to have come from private equity group BC Partners, which alongside Canadian pension fund OMERS lost out to Doughty Hanson in the recent bid battle for cinema group Vue Entertainment, the paper reports.Britain's economy is recovering more strongly than in both of the previous recessions and will not be knocked off course by the spending cuts, Bank of England policy maker Andrew Sentance has said. Mr Sentance, the one member of the Monetary Policy Committee who has been calling for an interest rate rise for the past six months, said there is "grounds for optimism that a healthy, business-led recovery can be sustained in the UK while public spending is restrained and the deficit is brought down," according to the Daily Telegraph. Vince Cable is set to warn Russia that its economic growth depends upon a "robust and transparent legal system", less red tape and the proper protection of intellectual property rights. The Business Secretary, who is leading a delegation of 37 British businessmen in Moscow, will make the plea for an improvement in Russian business practices in a speech on Thursday at the Russian capital's Higher School of Economics, reports the Daily Telegraph.The court-appointed trustee charged with recovering assets stolen by US fraudster Bernie Madoff is suing the Swiss bank UBS for $2bn (£1.25bn), claiming that it "enabled Madoff's Ponzi scheme" through several feeder funds controlled by the bank. The lawsuit, lodged by trustee Irving Picard in New York, alleges 23 counts of fraud and misconduct, the Guardian reports. The chief executive of Northern Foods is leaving to join Brakes, the supplier to the catering industry, just days after the maker of Goodfella's Pizzas unveiled a merger with Ireland's Greencore. Stefan Barden, who has been at the helm of Northern Foods since February 2007, was conspicuous by his absence from last week's merger statement. Mr Barden will join Brakes in January in the new role of UK chief executive, reporting into its group chief executive Philip Jansen, according to the Independent.Ireland has unveiled plans to tap even further into its national pension fund to help tackle the escalating financial crisis gripping the Republic. In a move that will see Irish workers shoulder yet more pain in the years ahead, Dublin said it would now begin digging into the €24bn (£20bn) pension nest-egg to fund its day-to-day needs. Having already siphoned off €7bn to prop up its crippled banks last year, Dublin will in the future force its National Pensions Reserve Fund to buy debt issued by the government.