Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Emma Reynolds)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your excellent chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra); this may be his first Westminster Hall debate, but I am sure it will be the first of many. Can I just say how much I enjoy the debates in Westminster Hall? We often get a bit more time to express opinions, and the Government can give a greater degree of detail than I certainly could in the Backbench Business debate on the Floor of the House a few weeks ago.
I thank all the hon. Members present, who have come from beyond Hertfordshire, if my geography is good. I know the beautiful rural areas of Shropshire extremely well because I have family there. When the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) was talking, I could not suppress a smile at his description of the beautiful hills of Shropshire, which is where I spend many of my recesses with my children. My parents live in his constituency, in the beautiful town of Ludlow. I could go on, but I had better stop there.
From Shropshire to Strangford and beyond, we have heard perspectives from different parts of the country. I have met many hon. Members who have championed their constituencies and campaigned for banking hubs. It was good to hear from the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), who is a doughty champion. We have had a number of discussions in private and in the House, as well as in written questions. I know he has real concerns, and is campaigning, particularly, for the banking hub in Cheshunt. It was good to hear from the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray), who stressed the importance of rural areas, which I will come back to. The hon. Member for South Shropshire also mentioned that, referring to his 700 miles of beautiful countryside. He also asked about the criteria for the Link assessment, as did other hon. Members.
It is always a pleasure to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He often asks difficult questions on a variety of subjects. The way in which he is able to range across different subjects in the House is really quite impressive. He talked about digital inclusion and exclusion, as did other hon. Members, and I will come back to that. I thank the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper); I met her constituent Derek French, who is a doughty campaigner for access to cash and banking. I pay tribute to his work.
Daisy Cooper
Derek French is a constituent in my neighbouring constituency of Harpenden and Berkhamsted —I just want to put that on the record. Harpenden very proudly defends its independence from St Albans and I do not want anybody to be inadvertently offended by my trying to secure some recognition from the Minister in the House, but I thank her for her congratulations.
Emma Reynolds
I am grateful for the correction. I would not like to get in trouble with the hon. Members that represent different parts of Hertfordshire, not least our Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern), who also represents a constituency there. I have better knowledge of Buckinghamshire, which is nearby, but I thank her for that correction to the record. I do not want to get in trouble with the hon. Lady’s colleague, the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins), who was very active in our previous debate on this issue.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), for his speech. I will come back to the points that he made in a moment. I also thank, for their interventions, my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Joe Morris) and for Reading Central (Matt Rodda), the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), and the hon. Members for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) and for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). I have met some of them separately to this debate.
I thank again the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire—I was going to call him my hon. Friend; the debate feels very friendly. I have looked in detail at his constituency, thanks to his calling this debate, which is always a benefit of having such Westminster Hall debates, as he will attest to. I have had a look at Abbots Langley and Rickmansworth. I often go through his constituency on the way home, particularly the Rickmansworth area. They are very different parts of the constituency, from what I can see, in terms of the scale of the population and the number of shops in those areas. In Abbots Langley, I am told—he can correct me if this is not true—that there has been no community access request, as of our information. So if he does want to campaign for a banking hub there, it is open to him and his colleagues on the council he mentioned to request such a thing. Equally, I know he has an enhanced post office in Rickmansworth. Again, it is open to him or others in the community to make the application so that Link would assess the criteria.
Mr Mohindra
I thank the Minister for her summing up. In terms of Abbots Langley, she is correct that the post office has not yet put in an application. It was first establishing the criteria and trying to learn lessons from others. The postmaster is now in a position to actively pursue that, and part of my local campaign is to support that. I hope the Minister will give her blessing and potentially a letter of support, if that is within reason, to ensure that Link and others think that is practical. In terms of the Rickmansworth one, she is correct. It is an enhanced banking hub rather than a full banking hub, as the debate suggests.
Emma Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman will have to excuse me; I cannot offer letters of support. If I were to do that, there would be a number of letters that I would be writing. The Link assessment is independent and is what the previous Government set up and legislated for, in terms of access to cash. I will come on to that in a moment, if that is okay, and give him some more clarification on that.
We need to recognise that the landscape for retail banking has changed significantly in recent years, turbo-charged by the pandemic. For example, last year we had 93% of people with current accounts access their bank online or via a mobile app. That obviously does not include the nan of the hon. Member for Broxbourne, who I have heard about on numerous occasions, but there are lots of people who access their banking in that manner. There has also been a shift among older customers, with 83% of those aged over 75 now using online or mobile banking, compared with just 27% in 2017. That is a marked shift.
We know, however, that there are vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and people with disabilities, who very much appreciate and value in-person banking. Branches can act as anchors in a local community and are very important to small businesses, as several hon. Members mentioned, not least the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire. When a high street branch closes, particularly the last branch on the high street, it can be a real blow to an area, especially where the alternatives are limited.
That is why the Government, when we were in opposition and formulating our manifesto, secured the industry’s commitment to roll out 350 banking hubs—that is in totality. I say to the hon. Member for St Albans that that is not a limit, and actually, we are quite far along that journey. We have 230 that have already been agreed, and more than 170 are open. That includes 108 that have been open since the general election, and we are not even a year into our Government. We promised 350 by the end of the Parliament, but we are running much more quickly than that. I hope that we will surpass 350 by the end of the Parliament.
Robbie Moore
I would like to put on record my thanks to the Minister for her interaction with me in my endeavours to get a banking hub in Ilkley. Could I ask the Minister about the assessment criteria that Link and Cash Access UK are using? Is it the right course to get to the point where we are relying on the final bank to close before we start looking at applications? Secondly, does the Minister not feel it is right that when we do manage to secure a banking hub, an ATM could be located on the outside of that banking hub so that people could access cash out of hours?
Emma Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman brings me to the meat of my speech, which I must move on to, as I do not have very long left. I always get lulled into a false sense of security in Westminster Hall, where I think I have quite a long time to speak. I made the position very clear on the Floor of the House a couple of weeks ago, when we had a similar debate. The hon. Gentleman will know that under the previous Government’s Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, Parliament legislated to protect reasonable access to cash. Specifically, Parliament gave the Financial Conduct Authority new powers to ensure that communities could both withdraw and deposit cash, but that governs only access to cash; it did not include access to in-person banking.
The hon. Member asked about the Link criteria, an issue that has been raised in previous debates. The Government do not have the power to amend the assessment criteria. Any decisions on changes to Link’s criteria for access to banking services are an independent matter for Link. As he will know, the set-up of banking hubs is a voluntary initiative by the banks. I visited a very good banking hub in Buckingham that has different community bankers coming in every day of the week, which works extremely well.
The hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire and others asked whether we are minded to change this situation. We continue to monitor it, and we have heard lots of concerns expressed today. I continue to meet hon. Members, and I have another session next week for those who, if they have not met with me, would like to. Currently, however, the Government are not minded to change the legislation. I am soon to meet John Howells, the chief executive of Link, and I have listened to the concerns of hon. Members, particularly those with rural constituencies, including the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. I think that Link should take into account his point about the different rules for what is rural and what is urban.
I am running very low on time, and I am conscious that the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire should be allowed a brief wind-up. I promise to respond in writing to some of the questions asked about the Post Office in the debate.