Campaigners fighting to win compensation for former Bradford & Bingley shareholders are demanding the release of information about the bank’s nationalisation in September.

They want to use the Freedom of Information Act to force ministers to reveal the detailed sequence of events that led to the state takeover of B&B’s mortgage business and the sale of its branch and savings arm to Spanish bank Santander.

David Blundell, chairman of the Bradford & Bingley Shareholders’ Action Group, which now has 15,000 members, said the nationalisation and break-up of B&B had been a “terrible and costly mistake”.

He accused ministers of being ‘deliberately obfuscating’ in their continued lack of response to BBAG’s requests for information about the demise of the former building society.

He has written to Christopher Graham, the Information Comm-issioner, calling on him to help prise out details from the Government.

Mr Blundell said that his group wanted to know why B&B was treated differently from the other UK banks which received financial support from the Government and were allowed to continue trading as going concerns through the financial crisis.

Requests from thousands of shareholders and bondholders had been either ignored or dismissed by Government and regulatory bodies. Mr Blundell said: “This is important information and the Government needs to be totally transparent with investors, particularly as there is an urgent need to establish an accurate train of events to support the ongoing valuation exercise currently being undertaken by Peter Clokey and his team at PwC.

“Across Whitehall, the Government’s response to hundreds of investors’ requests for information has been woeful and appears deliberately obfuscating. “There is considerable evidence to support our view that the Government’s nationalisation of B&B was a hastily made political decision that has proved to be a terrible and costly mistake.

“We have asked repeatedly why the B&B savings book was sold to Santander, thus destroying the bank as a viable business, and why the bondholders have not been treated in the same way as the other banks who received government support. We have seen no substantive response.”

Mr Blundell said the Cabinet Office had told BBAG that it had ‘no files’ on the matter and the Government, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority had also ignored requests for answers or had refused to provide details on the grounds of cost.

Shipley MP Philip Davies, who supports the BBAG campaign, said the Government had also refused his request for details of the B&B takeover to be placed in the House of Commons library.

He was today meeting with the B&B valuer Peter Clokey to urge him to ask for the details in the process of deciding on what, if any, compensation is paid to B&B shareholders. Mr Davies wants Mr Clokey to put a timescale on the process.