Alison Rose was forced to resign in July after outrage over the closure of Nigel Farage's bank accounts at Coutts. Photo: Andrew Lloyd/Alamy Stock Photo
Dame Alison Rose's name will be removed from the government's official review of women's entrepreneurship due to her role in the Nigel Farage debanking scandal.
The former NatWest executive will have her name removed from the Rose Review, an annual report she has overseen since 2019 on how to encourage women in business.
Dame Alison was forced to resign as head of the annual review in July following a row over NatWest's handling of Mr Farage's account. However, the project continued to bear her name.
Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch decided to rebrand the review and ordered all official communications to be suspended until a new name was drawn up.
< p>Dame Alison is believed to have made the decision.
The Government is believed to be currently considering how best to proceed with the review work and the potential of new leadership. The source stressed that the project itself would continue.
Then Chancellor of the Exchequer Robert Jenrick asked Dame Alison to lead the Rose Review in 2018 amid concerns that too few women were starting businesses. The goal of the project was to identify the barriers women face and propose solutions to help overcome them.
Rose Review claims that in addition to producing the annual report, it has provided support, training and opportunities to hundreds of thousands of women. women business owners across the UK
News of the review's rebrand was first reported by the Guardian newspaper, citing a letter to the board. Kevin Hollinrake, the small business minister, sits on the Rose Review board and is believed to have been involved in the decision to rebrand the business.
The renaming of Rose Review is the latest consequence of the debanking. scandal which led to the resignation of Dame Alison and the chief executive of Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest.
NatWest was plunged into crisis. In June, Coutts told Farage his bank account would be closed.
A BBC report inaccurately claimed the former UKIP leader was stripped of his bank accounts because he had fallen below the wealth threshold.
However, internal documents obtained by Mr Farage subsequently revealed that Coutts staff had decided his views did not align with the company's values.
The 40-page dossier, including minutes of a meeting last November that reviewed Farage's history, raised concerns that he was a “xenophobe and a racist” and raised questions about whether he was at risk presence as a client may damage the bank's reputation.
The BBC subsequently apologized to Mr Farage for its reporting.
Dame Alison resigned as NatWest boss in July after admitting she passed information on Mr Farage's private banking to the BBC. Her resignation occurred under pressure from ministers. Dame Alison has since lost £7.6 million in wages and benefits due to the crisis.
The scandal sparked a major debate about debanking culture at financial institutions and led to debanking being included in the HarperCollins English Dictionary's word of the year list.
After the scandal, the number of complaints about the closure of bank accounts increased sharply. In the six months to the end of September, the Financial Ombudsman opened 1,613 new cases related to bank closures, equivalent to around 268 cases each month.
Regulators have also launched an investigation into NatWest and Coutts over their handling of the saga. Earlier this month, the city watchdog said Coutts may have broken rules by failing to provide Mr Farage with a proper explanation for the closure of his account.
Deputies have begun an investigation into the problems faced by small and medium-sized businesses when trying to access finance.
Harriett Baldwin, chair of the cross-party Treasury Select Committee, said in November that MPs were “concerned” about the rise in complaints about debanking.
Department of Business & The trade declined to comment. Dame Alison and NatWest have been contacted for comment.
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