LONDON, March 7 (UPI) -- The British government says it is increasing its stake in Lloyds Banking Group from 43 percent to 63 percent, giving it control of the company.

Treasury Minister Stephen Timms told the BBC the deal means the banking group will be mandated to hand out $20 billion in lending this year, of which $15 billion would go to companies and $4.2 billion for home mortgages.

"It's a very important announcement," Timms said. "It provides new certainty for Lloyds enabling it to commit new lending into the economy."

The deal to give the government a bigger stake was reached Friday night, with taxpayers also providing a fresh injection of equity into Lloyds to prop up its balance sheet, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The government will provide the new equity through the purchase of "B shares," which it could later convert into ordinary equity that could boost its voting rights in Lloyds to 75 percent, the newspaper said.

As part of the move, Lloyds will put about $366 billion of impaired assets -- most of which were acquired with last year's purchase of HBOS PLC -- into the government's scheme for toxic insurance assets, the Telegraph said.

DUNDEE, Scotland, March 7 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says he wants international standards to limit the pay of bankers and an end to a culture of short-term bonuses.

Speaking Friday at the Scottish Labor Party conference in Dundee, Brown said free markets need "morality" and claimed his plan for "a global new deal," which includes new rules on banking regulation, is finding a warm reception among world leaders, The Daily Telegraph reported.

"Only government can make the markets work in the public interest and not their own interest," Brown said. "We believe that markets need not just money-men but morals, that being fair matters far more than being laissez faire and that banks must always serve the public, not just serve themselves."

With his Labor Party trailing opposition Conservatives badly in public opinion polls, Brown tying his political fortunes on a summit of the Group of 20 advanced economies in London next month, where he is set to propose his "global new deal" reform package, the Telegraph said.

A foundation of the package is an worldwide effort toward shared international rules for banks, observers said.

WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) -- Residential housing experts say they're afraid this spring's U.S. home-buying season will be even grimmer than last year's disappointing showing.

Analysts say the housing market has a ways to go before hitting bottom despite small signs of recovery in hard hit states such as California and Florida, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The numbers portend a March-to-June home selling season that will perhaps be the worst since the market began to spiral down in 2006, experts said. As the recession deepens, U.S. cities where home values had been holding up are now suffering, while prices are slowly starting to improve in some hard-hit suburban areas, the Times said.

Home sales fell nationally in January, spurred by sharply tougher times in the U.S. Northeast, which, along with parts of the U.S. Northwest and South, hadn't seen the kinds of real estate downturns evidenced in the Southwest and Florida, the newspaper said.

WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) -- In a U.S. retail industry where many companies are struggling to survive, debt and sustained sales declines are best indicators of trouble, analysts say.

The CEOs of hard-hit retailers have to calm shareholders at a time when any indication of trouble could send them reeling toward bankruptcy, and so cannot be relied upon to deliver an accurate picture of their financial health, The New York Times reported Saturday.

"Some of them continue to deny there is anything wrong," Mark Cohen, a professor at Columbia Business School, told the newspaper. "And they're lying."

Instead, a retail chain's debt picture must be examined to get a sense of if they will survive the global financial crisis, experts say, and specifically, whether a company with weak sales has any big debt payments coming due soon. If so, whether it can make them is a key question.

Another indicator is drastic and sustained sales declines, the Times said. While many retailers have seen sales declines, some can sustain such losses for only so long. Most chains that have been able to post sales increases and capture market share are big-box stores that focus on low costs, such as Wal-Mart and BJ's Wholesale Club, analysts said.