NatWest buys Metro Bank mortgage book for £2.4bn and spent £24m on axed share sale campaign

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NatWest was forced to spend £24m on the former Tory government’s shelved “Tell Sid” campaign featuring Sir Trevor McDonald to promote the sale of the bank’s shares to the public.

NatWest’s bill for the campaign, which was set to launch within days of Rishi Sunak announcing the surprise early summer election which scuppered the roll-out, was revealed as it also announced that it has acquired a raft of mortgages from Metro Bank for £2.4bn.

The bank was forced to stump up for part of what would have been a £10m-plus advertising push – which included TV ads featuring the veteran newsreader and presenter popping up around the UK asking the public “Are you in?” – because of agreements with the government dating back to the tax-payer funded bailout in 2008.

NatWest has had to pay for part of the preparation costs for the sale, including toward the production of the advertising, printing and distributing documents, as well as legal fees and expenses.

The campaign was part of the Tory party’s efforts to return the bank – formerly known as Royal Bank of Scotland – to private ownership by 2025-26, following its £46bn taxpayer bailout during the height of the financial crisis. There were also hopes that the campaign would encourage everyday savers to start investing in British stocks.

The nationwide push had been originally intended as a “pre-election sweetener” to help the Tories.

The Agenda

9am BST: Italy business and consumer confidence, July
From 945am BST: Allan Leighton, former chair of Royal Mail and Post Office, to give evidence at the Horizon IT public inquiry
1pm BST: USA Core PCE Price Index (June), PCE Price Index (June)

Key events

Eurostar services to and from Paris have been disrupted due to widspread, co-ordinated acts of vandalism to France’s high-speed rail network hours before the Paris Olympics are due to begin.

All high speed trains to and from the French capital are being diverted via the classic line today, extending the journey time by about 90 minutes, the company said. Several trains have been cancelled.

A spokesperson for SNCF, the French rail operator, said:

This is a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network.

Drivers are still paying to much for fuel, says UK competition regulator

Drivers are still paying too much for their fuel, with increases in retailers’ fuel margins costing consumers £1.6bn last year, according to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The regulator said that retail margins remain “significantly” above historic levels, a year after criticising the market for failing customers.

The CMA said that retailers’ fuel margins – the difference between what they pay for their fuel and the price they sell it at – remain high with supermarkets’ fuel margins roughly double what they were in 2019.

Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said:

Last year we found that competition in the road fuel market was failing consumers, and published proposals that would revitalise competition amongst fuel retailers. One year on and drivers are still paying too much.

The RAC said that it has already written to the new energy secretary to try and get action taken on the issue, following the findings of the third monitoring report by the CMA.

Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, said:

To see that drivers have paid £1.6bn more than they should have in the last year is nothing short of outrageous, especially when so many are dependent on their vehicles. Drivers have every right to feel ripped off, especially knowing there is virtually no market competition between retailers. Our analysis has long shown that even accounting for retailers’ increased operating costs, margins on fuel are at extremely questionable levels.