I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for his introduction and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, for drawing attention to the report of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s Sub-Committee A, on which I sit, so I do not have to do it. With the state of my voice, that is welcome.
The issue of note here is that an obligation to service non-UK residents is removed. Many of these will probably be UK nationals and will probably come to the UK sometimes, even though they are resident elsewhere. I am sure that this will be an inconvenience and that is greatly regretted. In the interests of saying that this is not being reciprocated, there has been a lack of generosity of spirit in this statutory instrument. Can the Minister confirm whether there would be any supervisory pressure, under “know your client” provisions,
for these accounts to be closed? Will supervisors make it more awkward and put pressure on the banks so that closure is de facto the most likely event?
I also remind the Committee that one of the purposes of this legislation was to ensure that basic bank accounts could be opened in advance for people who were moving around for the purposes of work. Otherwise, you get into a Catch-22 situation where you cannot get a permanent place of residence until you have a bank account and you cannot get a bank account until you have a permanent place of residence. While I was an MEP, I got this in my postbag. Indeed, one of my own children had this problem. We were constantly having to intervene to get these things sorted. If we want to encourage talent and still allow it to come to the UK, why make it awkward? I am sure that those who come for big and well-paid jobs may find that they can open accounts, but what about the more ordinary person? I think that, actually, this is a very bad measure.