Ordinary investors will be awarded ‘bonus’ shares in NatWest Group if they hold onto stock they acquire in the taxpayer-backed bank, under a plan expected to be finalised by ministers later this month.

Sky News has learnt key details of the options being explored by the Treasury for a multibillion pound retail offer of NatWest shares, including a likely £10,000 cap on applications from members of the public.

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, announced in last year’s autumn statement that he would explore a mass-market share sale “to create a new generation of retail investors”.

Since that point, further buybacks by the bank and stock sales by the government have reduced the taxpayer’s stake to around 28% – worth about £7bn at NatWest’s current valuation.

The retail offer will be launched alongside an institutional placing of shares in the bank which could in aggregate lead to the Treasury’s stake falling to as low as 10%, sources indicated this weekend.

If investor demand turns out to be greater than expected, the reduction could be even more substantial, they said.

That would put the government within striking distance of returning NatWest to full private ownership 16 years after the lender was rescued from the brink of collapse with £45.5bn of public money.

This weekend, sources said that options under active consideration by Treasury officials included a minimum investment of £250, to encourage a wide participation in the retail offer.

A ceiling of £10,000 was “likely”, they said, mirroring a 2015 Treasury plan – which was subsequently abandoned – for a retail offering by the Treasury of Lloyds Banking Group shares.

The NatWest offer is also expected to award one bonus share for every ten bought by retail investors and retained for at least a year, the sources added, although they cautioned that final details such as the bonus share ratio and precise investment thresholds could still be amended by officials.

A modest discount to the bank’s prevailing share price will also be applied to encourage take-up.

People close to the decision-making process said that Mr Hunt and Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, were being kept closely informed on the plans.

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Depending upon market conditions, they said an announcement to launch the offer could come in late May or early June.

The green light will be subject to any political turbulence in the aftermath of this week’s local elections, they added.

Shares in NatWest have risen by more than 20% over the last year despite the turbulence surrounding the debanking row involving Nigel Farage, the former UKIP leader.

Dame Alison Rose, the bank’s former boss, stepped down last year after it emerged that she had spoken to a BBC journalist about the closure of Mr Farage’s accounts.

She has since been replaced by Paul Thwaite, whose transition from interim to permanent boss of NatWest was confirmed earlier this year.

NatWest also has a new chairman, Rick Haythornthwaite, who replaced Sir Howard Davies at its annual meeting last month.

Mr Farage, who has threatened to launch legal action against the bank, recently declared his fight with the lender “far from over”.

“For a retail NatWest share sale to work – as outlined by Jeremy Hunt in the Budget – investors must have confidence in the bank,” he said.

“My debanking row with them is far from over.

“They acted in a politically prejudiced way against me and then deliberately tried to cover it up.

“Until they provide full disclosure and apologise for their behaviour, why should any retail customer trust them?”

The government’s stake in NatWest has been steadily reduced during the last eight years from almost 85%.

Sky News revealed earlier this year that ministers had drafted in M&C Saatchi – the advertising agency founded by the brothers who helped propel Margaret Thatcher to power – to orchestrate a campaign to persuade millions of Britons to buy NatWest shares.

NatWest, which changed its name from Royal Bank of Scotland Group in an attempt to distance itself from its hubristic overexpansion, was rescued from outright collapse by an emergency bailout that Fred Goodwin, its then boss, likened to “a drive-by shooting”.

A spokesperson for NatWest said “decisions on the timing and mechanic of any offer are a matter for the Treasury”.

China has been branded “a bully” and an international lawbreaker after its ships blasted Philippine vessels with water cannon in the South China Sea.

Sky News was on board the BRP Bagacay when a Chinese vessel fired water at it, causing significant damage.

Philippine coastguard spokesman Jay Tarriela told Sky News that this week’s confrontation was the first time China had used “such aggression” against their ships.

“The metal parts and the railing were bent. The canopy was also destroyed. So this came as a surprise for us that China never hesitated to use brute force,” he said.

“It completely justifies us calling The People’s Republic of China a bully country.”

The Philippine coastguard was on a resupply mission to the Scarborough Shoal to deliver food and fuel to Philippine fishermen when they were struck.

The submerged reef lies in disputed waters. China claims sovereignty over the reef but it is much closer to the Philippines and lies within its legally recognised exclusive economic zone.

The vessel Sky News was on board was the closest the coastguard had ever been to the shoal – just 600 metres away from it.

Asked if the mission to the shoal was a provocative move by the Philippine coastguard, Commodore Tarriela denied they were “poking the bear” but rather “driving the bear out of our own territory”.

The Philippines has been stepping up its patrols in the area under the instruction of President Bongbong Marcos, and reasserting its claim to the shoal in recent months.

It has raised the spectre of open conflict. While neither side currently wants that, there is now a greater threat of open conflict.

Asked what the end game was for the Philippines, Commodore Tarriela said their priority was to “tell the world” about China’s aggression.

He said their secondary goal was to ensure “like-minded states” also made China “fall in line and respect international law”.

“Otherwise, it’s everybody’s loss,” he added.

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Philippine government policy is not to resist using water cannon against Chinese vessels – and Commodore Tarriela insisted that policy remains in place after the confrontation.

The government also remains intensely determined to protect the waters it believes it has every right to operate in.

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“We’re not going to yield and we’re not going to surrender a square inch of our territory,” Commodore Tarriela insisted.

Beijing has called the action its own coastguard took as “necessary”.

Speaking at the Chinese foreign ministry’s daily news conference, spokesperson Lin Jian described the coastguard’s conduct as “professional, proper, and lawful”.

Much has been said about the students whose protests have gripped America this past week.

Their cause has been framed in polarising ways. A violent Hamas-sympathising mob? Or peace activists striving for equality?

Within a frenzied spectrum of views and noise, one young student sat down with me for a conversation.

Aidan Doyle, 21, is a philosophy and jazz double major at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

He was arrested early on Thursday morning for being part of an encampment at the university.

He told Sky News he was shocked that the police arrested so many student protesters, despite not intervening in an attack on the protesters by a pro-Israeli group the day before.

He said his arrest had not deterred him from continuing his protest, which he likened to the Vietnam War demonstrations of the 1960s.

Mr Doyle rejected the notion, from President Biden, that the protests are not peaceful.

“Graffiti, putting posters up, that’s all peaceful,” he said, commenting on the president’s statement from the White House.

“I also think that President Biden needs to actually take some introspection and realise that maybe the reason so many of these protests are happening is partially due to him.”

Mr Doyle added: “Protests in general are part of the American spirit. They’re part of being an American. And if we were to just stand around in circles and sing and dance, and pretend everything was fine, then nothing would change and nobody would care at all.

“Part of a protest is causing disruption and causing at least a minor level of chaos that is, again, not violent but that actually disrupts things.”

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He denied any accusations of antisemitism, but conceded there is a spectrum of opinion within the movement.

“If you’re going to criticise a movement, I think you have to look at the movement’s goals and their mission, not what fringe members of the group say or do.

“You have to actually look at what we say, what the organisers say, and what is in the mainstream, and what our mission and our goal is: the peace and prosperity of the Palestinian people.”

Asked if he believed in Israel’s right to exist as a country, he said: “I think Jewish sovereignty is incredible. I think it’s an amazing thing.”

He added: “I think that if there is a country for Jewish people that protects the Jewish people, that is of utmost importance, especially with the vile and rampant antisemitism that exists across the world that I see every day and that I try and combat as much as possible.

“But doing that and then simultaneously repressing another group of people, dehumanising them and brutalising them, then the question of whether your state has the right to exist becomes secondary.”