Under-fire NatWest chief apologises as Farage vows to uncover ‘the absolute truth’

The chief executive of NatWest has finally apologised to Nigel Farage amid the row over the closure of his bank accounts, but failed to address many of the questions raised by the scandal.

Dame Alison Rose said comments made about the former UK Independence Party leader by staff at Coutts while justifying the closure of the accounts, including suggestions that he is a racist, were “deeply inappropriate” and “do not reflect the view of the bank”.

Coutts is a subsidiary of NatWest, which is 39 per cent owned by the taxpayer.

However, Dame Alison failed to reveal who briefed Simon Jack, the BBC’s business editor, that Mr Farage had been de-banked for “commercial” reasons – a claim the broadcaster has since admitted was inaccurate.

She did not say whether the briefing would be investigated by the bank and did not invite Mr Farage to rejoin Coutts – telling him he could have another account at NatWest.

In a letter to Mr Farage, she said: “I am writing to apologise for the deeply inappropriate comments about yourself.” She added: “I would like to make it clear that they do not reflect the view of the bank.”

Mr Farage said he welcomed the apology, but believed Dame Alison had been forced into it by the Treasury. On his GB News show, he said he was “going to find out” if she leaked his banking information to the BBC.

“On July 3, you were having dinner sitting next to the BBC’s economics correspondent Simon Jack,” he said, pointing out that the journalist rang him the next morning and posted on Twitter that his account had been closed because there was not enough money in it.

“The BBC put that out, and many in the media accepted that version,” he added. “Mr Jack, for some reason, seems to have gone to ground today and hasn’t backtracked from it.

“Can I ask you, Dame Alison, was it you? Was it you that breached my private client banking confidentiality? Was it you that told Simon Jack that?

“Well, I’m going to find out, because today I’ve put in another subject access request, this time to NatWest bank and in particular I’m looking for any personal correspondence, Dame Alison, that concerns me. So in 30 days time, we’ll know the absolute truth.”

He later added in a tweet that Dame Alison “needs to take responsibility as CEO, and is wrong to say the views of her own committee’s report don’t reflect the bank.”

On Tuesday, The Telegraph revealed that Coutts had compiled a background dossier on Mr Farage, which drew attention to his views on Brexit, immigration and LGBT rights, and his friendships with Donald Trump and Novak Djokovic.

He was able to obtain the dossier by making a subject access request, which gives people the right to ask companies for a copy of any personal data held on them under data protection laws.

In the dossier, he was also referred to as xenophobic and racist. The bank’s wealth reputational risk committee concluded that his views were not “compatible” with the bank’s “values or purpose”.

Mr Trump’s son, Eric, told The Telegraph: “For a bank to cancel an individual because of their political party or individual beliefs is asinine and dangerous. A bank’s sole purpose is to safeguard and manage people’s money – not to infringe on their clients’ freedom of speech via threat of cancellation.

“Citizens of the UK should be very fearful. If this can happen to Nigel Farage, it can happen to anyone – especially people who don’t have a public platform, voice or ability to fight back.”

On Thursday, it emerged that NatWest faces a wave of demands from “de-banked” customers to discover why they lost their accounts.

‌Former customers are sharing templates and instructions on how to lodge subject access requests with the institution in a Facebook group of close to 10,000 people who claim to have had their NatWest accounts closed down.

On Thursday’s BBC Six O’Clock News, viewers were told that the broadcaster had previously quoted a source who rejected the notion that the decision to close Mr Farage’s account was in any way political and claimed it was a commercial decision. 

The presenter said that information had been inaccurate. The report did not reveal who the source was.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a former business secretary, called on NatWest to hold an inquiry into the leak and sack the person responsible for it.

‌“If you are a public figure, you know your life is very public,” he said. “There are a very small number of people you think who will maintain this confidence – your doctor, your bank manager, your accountant and your lawyer.

“If you cannot rely on your bank to keep your information secret, then who can you deal with? It’s such a breach of trust.

‌“The bank should have an inquiry to find out who leaked this and, however senior the person is who leaked it, they should no longer be a banker. After all, a doctor who gossiped about a patient’s health condition would be struck off.”

Mr Farage told The Telegraph that as well as writing to NatWest to demand that it hands over any emails about him from Dame Alison, he had also written to Coutts to say he believed there were still other documents the bank had not yet passed to him.

“I believe there is a lot more information to come out, and I am also now certain that NatWest have played a role in this whole saga,” he said. “I have requested new subject access requests from them today, including any correspondence from CEO Dame Alison Rose.”

Earlier in the day, the Treasury announced that British banks will be subject to stricter rules over closing customers’ accounts, with Andrew Griffith, the City minister, saying freedom of speech was the “cornerstone of our democracy”.

Banks will be forced to give a customer an explanation of why they are closing an account and will have to give them three months notice.

Mr Griffith said: “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.”

Responding to Dame Alison’s letter, Mr Farage told GB News: “Of course, in life it’s always good to get an apology, so thank you Dame Alison for apologising.

“But I can’t help feeling that the Treasury statement that preceded what you put out, and what I’ve actually been told, quietly, privately, is that you were forced into doing this by the Treasury.

“At least you’ve done it, I suppose. But the whole letter smacks of ‘not me guv, not me guv, I’m just the chief executive, I mean don’t blame me for what the banks under my direct control are doing’.”

He criticised the “outrageous, disgusting way in which you’re making men and women who are going about their lives, trying to set up small businesses, you’re making their life a complete and total misery”.

In her letter, Dame Alison said she was commissioning a full review of Coutts processes for how the decisions were made.

She said she believed “very strongly” in freedom of expression and insisted it was not her bank’s policy to close an account on the basis of “legally-held political and personal views”.

She wrote: “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 alternative banking arrangements at NatWest.

“I fully understand yours and the public’s concern that the processes for bank account closure are not sufficiently transparent. 

“Customers have a right to expect 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.”

‌Sir Michael Fabricant, the Tory MP, called on Dame Alison to consider her position, saying: “Alison Rose will not have reassured customers with her response. She did not address the leaks which were a disgrace from a licensed bank. Nor has she offered Mr Farage his account back.

“In 2023, banking facilities are as vital as water or electricity supplies. It is a utility. Alison Rose should now seriously consider her future in banking.”