Sunak Offers Lukewarm Support to NatWest Chairman Howard Davies

(Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Rishi Sunak offered lukewarm support for NatWest Group Plc Chairman Howard Davies following calls for him to follow Chief Executive Officer Alison Rose and quit the bank.

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Nigel Farage has called for other members of NatWest’s board to go over a row sparked by the bank’s decision to bar the politician-turned-presenter as a customer at its Coutts unit. Rose resigned Wednesday after political pressure — including from Sunak — made her position untenable. That followed her admission that she spoke to a BBC journalist about the decision to close Farage’s Coutts account.

On Wednesday morning Farage said Davies and Coutts CEO Peter Flavel should step down, arguing they had both failed in their responsibilities. On Thursday, while Sunak did not back calls for Davies to resign, he also declined to offer full-throated support.

The prime minister told reporters in London that it isn’t right for people to be “deprived” of basic banking services because of their political views. “This isn’t about any one individual, it’s about values -do you believe in free speech and not to be discriminated against because of your legally held views?,” he said.

Davies, 72, is already preparing to step down by mid-2024 when he’ll be nearing nine years in the role, the maximum length of service recommended by the UK’s Corporate Governance Code. He said at NatWest’s April annual meeting that the lender was starting a search for his successor. Davies was deputy governor of the Bank of England from 1995 to 1997 and chairman of the Financial Services Authority — then the UK markets regulator — from 1997 to 2003.

Read More: NatWest Chair Davies Says Bank Will Start Search for Successor

While Rose’s departure has stemmed some of the political anger at the bank, there are still questions over governance and how banks come to a judgment on politically exposed persons.

“We’re making sure that people, if banks are going to take away their bank accounts, have an ability to challenge that and have those bank accounts re-instated through the ombudsman,” Sunak said. “So there’s tough action that the government has taken to make sure that banks are behaving in the right way.”

--With assistance from Tom Metcalf.

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