NatWest should have its banking licence removed, says ROSS CLARK

NatWest Bank external store sign (Image: Getty) In 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and chancellor Alastair Darling faced a hurried and critical decision: should they let the Royal Bank of Scotland, which had got into deep trouble through reckless loans and expansion, go bust or prop it up with public money? The first course, admittedly, would have deepened the banking crisis at the time, but I thought they made the wrong decision of a bailout in which the taxpayer took ownership of a large part of the business. That bailout to date has cost taxpayers £27billion. But what have we got in return? A bank which appears to believe its first duty is not towards its shareholders (ie us) or to its 19 million customers but in promoting the political views of its leaders. RBS, in case you missed the rebranding, is now known as the NatWest Group, and is the owner of Coutts – the private bank caught out closing Nigel Farage’s accounts because, in the words of an internal report by Coutts’ reputation managers, the politics of the former Ukip and Brexit party leader ‘do not align with our values’. NatWest’s inclusivity on show with rainbow artwork for Pride (Image: Emily Alexandra) When it says ‘our’ values, of course, it means the values of its directors. I find it hard to believe that among the NatWest Group’s 62,000 employees are not a considerable number who voted for Brexit and rather appreciate Mr Farage’s contribution to national life. How ironic that one of those corporate values is supposed to be ‘helping to create a more inclusive culture’ – but not so inclusive, apparently, that the bank feels able to extend its services to customers whose political views differ from its own. If a bank were to refuse an account to someone on the grounds of their race, gender or sexual orientation there would be justifiable outrage. Believe in Brexit , though, and it seems that you are fair game to be cast into the financial wilderness. The Farage affair is not even the biggest scandal in which the NatWest Group has been involved since its bailout. Between 2009 and 2013 16,000 small business customers of the then RBS had their accounts transferred to a branch of the business called the Global Restructuring Group (GRG). The idea was for the GRG to nurse them through troubled economic times, yet they received the opposite of the bailout afforded to RBS. NatWest CEO Dame Alison Rose (Image: Getty) As a report by the Government’s entrepreneur-in-residence Lawrence Tomlinson concluded, many of these businesses didn’t even need help – they were perfectly viable as they were. But they had the lifeblood sucked out of them by excessive fees charged by the GRG. Many went bust unnecessarily, with RBS taking their assets. The bank later paid out £125million compensation yet was excused further punishment – the Financial Regulation Authority, which is supposed to police the sector, concluded it didn’t have the powers to act. How much better it would have been had it been RBS that was allowed to go bust in 2008, with its operations being passed over to receivers. The parts not closed down should have been broken up and sold off. As for the shares and the pensions of the directors who got the bank into trouble, they should have been allowed to collapse. Instead, RBS/NatWest was allowed to limp on as a hybrid public-private monster of a bank, thwarting competition from the ‘challenger’ banks which many hoped might transform the sector following the financial crisis. Worse, its directors seemed to gain the idea that the business was untouchable – that it was ‘too big to fail’. NatWest corporate values include diversity, inclusion and divesting from oil (its chief executive Dame Alison Rose said in February that it won’t be issuing loans for any new oil exploration). It has also dressed up its branches in Pride flags. Funnily enough, its embrace of fashionable Left-wing causes doesn’t appear to extend to promoting the redistribution of wealth. In spite of having cost taxpayers £27billion, it still saw fit to award Rose over £5million of remuneration last year. How ironic to hear Left-wing opponents of Nigel Farage congratulating Coutts on closing his accounts – when you might think they would condemn NatWest for greed and misuse of corporate power. There has been talk in government this week of removing the banking licence from any bank which tries to close its customers’ accounts on the grounds of their political views. But in the case of NatWest it should take pre-emptive action and break-up the business, as Gordon Brown’s government should have done 15 years ago. As joint-owner – with the UK public – of a third of the bank, I would be pleased to see the back of it. Ross Clarke is a political commentator.