Alison Rose breached data rules over Nigel Farage bank details, Information Commissioner rules
The former NatWest chief executive breached data rules when sharing details about Nigel Farage’s banking, the information watchdog has ruled.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said there were two privacy breaches involved in Dame Alison Rose’s disclosure to BBC News business editor Simon Jack.
This enabled him to report Mr Farage no longer met the financial criteria to hold an account with Coutts, which is part of the NatWest Group.
The ICO judged her actions were “unacceptable” – but no further regulatory action was needed as she already resigned and NatWest – partly owned by the government – is conducting its own investigation.
A NatWest spokesperson said: “We fully co-operate with the ICO in its assessment of any customer complaint, but it would not be appropriate for us to comment on this individual case.”
Coutts requires account holders to have at least £1m in investments or borrowings, or £3m in savings.
Read more: Dame Alison’s ousting is a sad end to a distinguished career with no obvious successor
Dame Alison said she believed it was public knowledge Mr Farage was a Coutts customer and had been offered a NatWest account but did say she made a “serious error of judgment”.
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NatWest boss Alison Rose in July admitted she made a “serious error of judgement” when she discussed Nigel Farage’s Coutts bank accounts with the BBC business editor Simon Jack.
She said she repeated the Coutts stance – which Mr Farage had publicised – that the bank saw the account closures as a commercial decision.
An ICO statement said, “we found that an individual employed by NatWest shared information when they should not have done, and that by doing so they infringed the complainant’s data protection rights”.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said in July, before Dame Alison resigned that he had “significant concerns” about how she handled the closure of the accounts.
NatWest is due to release financial results on Friday and is preparing to cancel bonuses and share awards owed to Dame Alison following her departure.
She’s eligible to be considered for a pro rata portion of the £2.9m annual bonus and long-term share awards that made up the remainder of her total maximum pay package of £5.3m.
Mr Farage told the Financial Times, “The ICO report confirms that Dame Alison Rose was in breach of data rules, of the FCA rule book and oversaw a culture of deep political prejudice at NatWest.”
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Nigel Farage has spoken about his aspirations as Reform UK party leader and insists he could become prime minister.
He told Sky’s political correspondent Darren McCaffrey the prospect of taking over at Number 10 at some point “may not be probable, but it’s certainly possible”.
In an interview on the sidelines of the Reform UK annual conference in Birmingham, he also described his intention to change the party and make it more democratic.
“I don’t want it to be a one man party. Look, this is not a presidential system. If it was, I might think differently about it. But no, it’s not. We have to be far more broadly based,” he said.
He also accepted there were issues with how the party was perceived by some during the general election.
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Highlights of Farage’s conference speech
“We had a problem,” he admitted. “Those that wished us harm use the racist word. And we had candidates who genuinely were.”
Earlier the party leader and Clacton MP gave his keynote speech at the conference, explaining how they intend to win even more seats at the next general election.
He also called out the prime minister for accepting free gifts and mocked the candidates in the Tory leadership race.
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Farage jokes about PM accepting gifts
But he turned to more serious points, too – promising that Reform UK will “be vetting candidates rigorously at all levels” in future.
Addressing crowds in Birmingham, Mr Farage said the party has not got “time” or “room” for “a few extremists to wreck the work of a party that now has 80,000 members”.
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“The infant that Reform UK was has been growing up,” he said in his speech and pointed towards the success of the Liberal Democrats at the general election.
He told delegates his party has to “model ourselves on the Liberal Democrats” which secured 72 seats on a smaller popular vote share than Reform UK.
He said: “The Liberal Democrats put literature and leaflets through doors repeatedly in their target areas, and despite the fact they haven’t got any policies at all. In fact, the whole thing’s really rather vacuous, isn’t it? But they manage with a vote much lower than ours to win 72 seats in parliament.”
Reform won more than four million votes in July, and 14% of the vote share – more than the Lib Dems.
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