A LABOUR MP last night demanded to know if the crippling debt saddled on Liverpool FC by its American owners was now seen as “toxic” – and being underwritten by the taxpayer.

The huge £237m debt is owed to goverment-owned RBS but ministers are refusing to confirm claims that Tom Hicks and George Gillett’s loans has been included in the asset protection scheme (APS).

Jim Cousins, a Labour backbencher, described the government’s claim that disclosure would be unlawful as nonsense – insisting details had been revealed in relation to other loans.

And he said the body set up to administer the APS should – if the loan was insured and it judged taxpayer funds to be at risk – demand new owners be installed at Liverpool.

Taking up concerns of Liverpool FC fans, Mr Cousins, a member of the Treasury select committee, said: “Ministers must come clean on whether this loan to Liverpool Football Club has been protected by the taxpayer.

“If it has, then the asset protection agency has a duty to ensure the taxpayer gets its money back – which means deciding whether it has been put at risk by bad management.”

Mr Cousins urged Anfield supporters – many of whom had urged him to find out the truth – to keep campaigning for the lid to be lifted on the controversial loan.

The row opens up a new front in the campaign by a group of Labour MPs, led by Walton’s Peter Kilfoyle, to use the part-nationalisation of RBS to put pressure on Hicks and Gillett.

The government – which took a 60% stake in the busted bank in October 2008 – was urged to pull the plug on the two Americans, forcing the pair to sell the club they took over in February 2007.