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You are already allowed to leave your bank, and go to a different bank. The 'only' thing this would change is you would be able to take your account number with you. BTW, european banks have explicitly not enabled this with IBAN, as the bank's name is now part of the account number.

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In The Netherlands almost all banks support a "forwarding service" when switching banks: direct debits to the old account will be forwarded for at least a year to the new bank (account).

You can bet the banks didn't think of this themselves, but it was probably forced on them by a consumer protection law. It is, coincidentally, something most Dutch people don't know exists.

I don't think account numbers will get portable due to the issue you raised. However UK has kept pushing bank portability with "current account switch guarantee" which seamlessly transfers all your incoming/outgoing direct debits and the balance then closes your old account.

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