Chancellor Alistair Darling has promised to safeguard the jobs of about 1,500 Bradford & Bingley mortgage staff for six months after the nationalisation of the bank’s lending business.

But it has become clear that only half of the 3,000 B&B employees will retain their jobs in the long term following the break-up of the ailing bank.

A Treasury spokesman told the Telegraph & Argus: “The position is that there are about 3,000 jobs in total. Half of those are associated with the retail deposit business. They will now be transferred to Santander.

“For the remaining jobs, we will provide some certainty for those people for a period of six months, but clearly there will be some decisions needed to be taken by the management.

“The other thing we have made clear is we are working actively with the regional development agency, Yorkshire Forward, to consider any repercussion.”

Yorkshire Minister Rosie Winterton will meet the Chancellor tomorrow, along with regional development chief Tom Riordan, to press for an action plan on jobs following the Bradford & Bingley break-up.

She said: “I am extremely concerned about the potential impact the financial difficulties of the Bradford & Bingley will have on the region and, in particular, for those people living in the Bingley and Bradford area.

“I welcome the fact that the Government has stepped in. Otherwise the bank would have gone under with all the resulting redundancies.

“In Yorkshire and the Humber, we have a good track record of regional and local agencies working together in partnership to help those who may be affected by major redundancies find new training and employment.”

Bradford Council chief executive Tony Reeves said: “The Council is working closely with Yorkshire Forward and neighbouring councils to manage the impact of the nationalisation of Bradford & Bingley.

“The Council will be focusing on supporting the financial services sector by working to safeguard as many financial services jobs as possible in the district. Local employees of Bradford & Bingley are our priority and to position the district positively as to any future plans for the Bradford & Bingley bank.”

As part of the B&B rescue package, Santander has paid £612m for the doomed bank’s savings business, which has £20 billion in deposits and 2.7m customers. It is also buying the 197 B&B branches along with some head office functions.

Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, dates back to 1857 and employs 132,000 staff in 40 countries. In November 2004 it took over Abbey National, which was the first building society to become a bank in 1989.

Just what the implications for B&B operations will be remain to be seen as Santander has also agreed to a £1.2 billion purchase of Alliance & Leicester which is yet to be finalised.

It is highly likely a major process of rationalisation will begin to reduce duplication of high-street branches and back-office operations.

The combined business of Abbey, Alliance & Leicester and B&B will have 1,286 branches across the UK, giving Santander a ten per cent share of the retail savings market.

B&B crisis special - click here