Grant Shapps struggles to open checking account as a ‘politically uncovered particular person’

Energy Security Secretary Grant Shapps revealed how his entire household has confronted issues making an attempt to safe a checking account.

The Cabinet minister stated he was requested to supply 18 years of payslips when making use of to 1 lender.

Along along with his spouse, Mr Shapps stated his brother, sister and kids have additionally struggled as a result of he’s classed as a “politically exposed person” (PEP).

Mr Shapps accused banks of getting “gone too far with this”.

“Every single member of my family – my wife, my brother and my sister. All different banks,” he informed the Sun on Sunday.

“It is difficulty in getting an account. My 19 year-old son, he’s just been sent an enormous letter, an enormous list of things that HSBC wants him to provide, which is as long as your arm and completely unreasonable…

“HSBC – the bank he has been with since he was a little kid – had asked him for a list as long as his arm about you know, what’s the source of your wealth and what’s this, what’s that.”

“My oldest son is 22 and he was outright refused an account by one of the Challenger banks. It is mad.”

Mr Shapps said he has been asked to provide documents covering his entire time in parliament.

“When I applied for accounts – I was asked for 18 years of a P60s recently,” he said.

“I said how am I meant to get 18 years of payslips? It was since I had started being an MP.”

Mr Shapps said that it was a problem faced by politicians and “anyone in public service” including former top civil servants.

The senior minister issued a warning to bank leaders, after the Government moved swiftly to introduce a number of reforms in the wake of Mr Farage’s high-profile campaign against Coutts and parent company NatWest.

Mr Farage has called for a culture change across the wider bank industry, as he continues to campaign on the issue.

“They’ve gone too far with this,” Mr Shapps said.

“They should get on with the job of being good at banking and not trying to second guess society. There are laws, there are politicians, there are courts.”

Mr Shapps is the latest politician to reveal he has been hit by banking problems.

As well as MPs and peers, military figures, diplomats, senior civil servants and councillors and their families are all at risk of being classed as PEPs.

Ex-Cabinet Minister Priti Patel backed calls for a Royal Commission inquiry into the de-banking scandal.

She told GB News: “I do. I don’t think this can be left to politicians or to Parliament anymore, I genuinely feel that way.

“These are banks that have been too huge to fail simply over ten years in the past and so they’ve actually received to the state the place they have been dwelling off our cash, taxpayers’ cash.

“NatWest remains to be owned, 38 % of it, by the state, so there are such a lot of questions right here. I do not assume the regulators could be trusted anymore.

“I feel there are wider inquiries which can be wanted concerning the regulatory setting that we have had as a result of, to be fairly frank, I’m an MP, I’m a politician. This has simply been rubber-stamped by Parliament 12 months after 12 months…”

HSBC declined to remark.