Retailers: Cash

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 15th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

I have suffered that situation myself. A customer intending to park who has not been warned that payment has moved from a cash or coin system to digital-only should take that up immediately with the council or whoever is administering that parking space on behalf of the local council.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, there is another problem. Because so many banks are closing their branches, one of the shopkeepers in my part of east Devon says that he cannot accept cash because he has to go seven or eight miles to the bank and cannot get there because his shop is open until six in the evening. Could the Minister look at the issue of bank branch closures set beside the question of cash?

[Lord Harlech (Con)]

Since 2019, the Government have chaired the Financial Inclusion Policy Forum, bringing together the financial services industry, consumer groups, the regulator and the third sector. We have also published an annual report on the Government’s work on financial inclusion. The most recent report was published in December 2021. Since 2019, the Government have allocated £100 million of funding from dormant assets towards financial inclusion.