Clause 6
4:45 pm
John Howell (Henley, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment 38, in clause 6, page 4, line 10, at end insert—
‘(4A) An account provider may not unreasonably refuse to open an account for an eligible person.’.
I want to probe in a little more detail a subject that we briefly touched on this morning. As the British Bankers Association website is at pains to point out,
“no bank is obliged to open an account for anyone.”
The situation that I envisage with the amendment is one in which a person has a notice of eligibility and goes to a bank, which refuses to open an account. As was hinted at this morning, that could occur if the bank’s procedures for opening an account are complex—anyone who has tried to open a bank account recently will have found out that it is complex and does not portray the good side of saving. Even the requirement for normal proof of identity may not be straightforward. For example, utility bills are often in one partner’s name, rather than both, making it difficult to produce a utility bill in one’s own name. That may occur for reasons that are practical, financial, or even cultural, as was also hinted at this morning.
We need to have some idea of where the line will be drawn in the exercising of discretion by the banks. Does the Economic Secretary envisage that the current general unwillingness of banks to open accounts for former bankrupts or those who have had county court judgments against them will be allowed to apply? In themselves, saving gateway accounts should be a safe bet, but I see from draft regulation 13(5)(c) that he is bringing normal money-laundering requirements to bear on those accounts. Indeed, banks may be less willing to see those accounts as safe is there is a feeling that they may be swung into an individual savings account or some other form of financial instrument at the end of their life. I heard the Economic Secretary’s general assurances about that this morning, but I hope that he will welcome highlighting the more specific concerns about this aspect of the Bill.