> The government shouldn’t even need to get involved here. In the UK accounts have no standard charge and come with free debit card.

Well, in the UK, fee-free basic bank accounts are the result of government regulation(1).

It was part of the UK's implementation of Directive 2014/92/EU (2), which mandated access to basic bank accounts across the EU (of which the UK was then a part).

(1) https://www.gov.uk/government/news/fee-free-bank-accounts-la... (2) https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr...