The boss of NatWest apologised to Nigel Farage last night for a “deeply inappropriate” internal report that found he was not ‘inclusive’ enough to be a Coutts customer. The Mail has more.
In a letter to the former UKIP leader, Dame Alison Rose insisted the assessment of Mr Farage “does not reflect the views of the bank”.
She stressed that “freedom of expression” and access to banking were fundamental to society, saying she has ordered a review of Coutts’ processes. However, she stopped short of offering to restore Mr. Farage’s relationship with the exclusive private bank, instead repeating the offer of an account with NatWest.
The letter emerged as the Treasury announced that U.K. banks will be subject to stricter rules over closing customers’ accounts, in an effort to protect freedom of speech.
Dame Alison has been urged to “take responsibility” after the Brexiteer unearthed the NatWest subsidiary’s secret dossier accusing him of promoting “xenophobic, chauvinistic and racist views” and noting his “Thatcherite beliefs”.
The letter from Dame Alison to Mr Farage, dated for today, said: “I am writing to apologise for the deeply inappropriate comments about yourself made in the now published papers prepared for the Wealth Committee.
“I would like to make it clear that they do not reflect the view of the bank.
“I believe very strongly that freedom of expression and access to banking are fundamental to our society and it is absolutely not our policy to exit a customer on the basis of legally held political and personal views.
“To this end, I would also like to personally reiterate our offer to you of alternate banking arrangements at NatWest.
“I fully understand your and the public’s concern that the processes for bank account closure are not sufficiently transparent. Customers have a right to expert their bank to make consistent decisions against publicly available criteria and those decisions should be communicated clearly and openly with them, within the constraints imposed by the law.
“To achieve this, sector wide change is required, but your experience, highlighted in recent days, has shown we need to also put our own processes under scrutiny too. As a result I am commissioning a full review of the Coutts processes for how these decisions are made and communicated, to ensure we provide better, clearer and more consistent experience for customers in future.”
Under the changes unveiled this evening, banks will have to explain why they are shutting down someone’s account under the new rules. They previously have not had to provide a rationale for doing so.
The Government has also extended the notice period for a forced account closure from 30 days to 90 days, which it said gives customers more time to challenge the decision through the Financial Ombudsman Service or find a replacement bank.
Andrew Griffith, the economic secretary to the Treasury, said: “Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, and it must be respected by all institutions.
“Banks occupy a privileged place in society, and it is right that we fairly balance the rights of banks to act in their commercial interest, with the right for everyone to express themselves freely.
“These changes will boost the rights of customers – providing real transparency, time to appeal and making it a much fairer playing field.”
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Will the apology be enough to save the under-fire NatWest boss? Allison Pearson in the Telegraph says she has to go, while Ross Clark in the Express says NatWest should lose its banking licence!
Stop Press 2: The Free Speech Union has just published some FAQs about what to do if you’ve been de-banked, including how to submit an SAR request and a template SAR that’s easy to adapt.
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A very helpful example of pseudo science.
It’s the kind of garbage collectivists lap up while searching for policies to solve social problems. We’re all, not just the homeless, like little lab rats on which they can act upon to “make the world a better place”.
This is similar to the Universal Basic Income which is another fraud. Hand every person £1K per month on top of the welfare system which sets a minimum level of income. Ridiculous. If you are homeless you cannot be handed cash. You need to repair many other issues first. The Welfare state is broke and broken. Enough already.
UBI would actually be better than the current welfare system. No means test, no discrimination, no perverse incentives.
There are big differences in why people might be homeless (or appear to be). Complex mental or physical health issues make some people unsuitable to ‘normal living’. Given social housing or sheltered accommodation and these people will still find their way back on the streets. Similarly there are the drug addicts and alcoholics that exhibit severe anti-social behavioral traits that money alone wont fix. Then there are the ‘professional’ beggars, there are also those exploited by criminal gangs in what is known as modern slavery.
Only anecdotally, but in a country like the UK with it’s generous welfare system and councils having a statuary responsibility to house anyone – I cant think of any reason why a person could be on the streets for lack of money. The first time in my life I saw real, genuine hardship was on a stag-do in Eastern Europe and ironically also in the supposedly wealthy USA.
FYI, you can watch Eva Vlaardingerbroek’s new (35min) documentary about the sorts of people living on the streets across Germany here. You will not be in a rush to visit after watching this. She speaks German too, clever lass. I can’t see how major cities in the UK would differ much from this tbh. Worth watching.
https://twitter.com/EvaVlaar/status/1703157698219458989
The study may not have been perfect, but Occam’s Razor would say that giving them unconditional cash DOES make them better off on balance, at least at the margin. I know conservatives don’t like the idea of “something for nothing” (unless they themselves benefit directly from it, and not “those people”) and think that everything must have more strings attached than a spider’s web (often conflating the normative with the descriptive), but come on now. Behind such opposition, I detect “the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism” that is causing such cognitive dissonance.
Well this conservative doesn’t like the idea of giving his money away. Occam’s razor would suggest to me that in the long run, giving people money without giving them other help does more harm than good.
1) No one in favor of it, including the authors, is saying they should be denied other help. That is a straw man, as we can walk and chew gum at the same time. 2) The money can simply be created, like all money is when you really look at it, so you don’t have to “give away” your own money if that bothers you. 3) And finally, as the late, great John Maynard Keynes famously said long ago, “in the long run, we are all dead”.
(Mic drop)
“2) The money can simply be created, like all money is when you really look at it, so you don’t have to “give away” your own money if that bothers you”
I don’t have the ability to create money, so giving mine away does bother me. Money can be created with a printing press, value can only be created through work.
This study has already been savaged in the Canadian and other media.
One was the pre-screening – everyone with addiction or mental issues were excluded. Only shorter-term homeless were excluded.
“age 19 to 65, homeless for less than 2 y (homelessness defined as the lack of stable housing), Canadian citizen or permanent resident, and nonsevere levels of substance use (DAST-10) (21), alcohol use (AUDIT) (22), and mental health symptoms Colorado Symptom Index (CSI) (23) based on predefined thresholds”.
There were many dropouts from the study etc.
“Of the 732 participants, 229 passed all criteria (31%). Due to loss of contact with 114 participants despite our repeated attempts to reach them, we successfully enrolled 115 participants in the study as the final sample (50 cash, 65 noncash0”
There were many problems with this study.