Mr Speaker
We come now to the petition. What a busy denizen of the House today is the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Angus Brendan MacNeil)!
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
I rise to present a petition on the closure of the RBS branch in Castlebay on the Island of Barra in the Hebrides, in my constituency of Na h-Eileanan an Iar, which will also adversely affect RBS customers in Lochboisdale in South Uist. Incidentally, the RBS bonus pot would keep those branches open and pay for salaries for hundreds of years. The absence of a bank on the Island of Barra would be akin to the people of Dover banking in Calais. With the Economic Secretary to the Treasury promising to visit and see the situation for himself in August, I still hold out some hope that the CEO of RBS, Ross McEwan, and/or the chairman, Howard Davies, will come and explain their strange and damaging decisions to the people of Barra and Uist.
The petition states:
The petition of residents of Na h-Eileanan an Iar,
Declares that the proposed closure of the Castlebay branch of the publicly-owned Royal Bank of Scotland on the Isle of Barra will have a detrimental effect on local communities and the local economy
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges Her Majesty’s Treasury, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Royal Bank of Scotland to take into account the concerns of petitioners and take whatever steps they can to halt the planned closure of these branches.
And the petitioners remain, etc.
[P002140]