Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Holmes of Richmond

Report stage
Monday 7th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I want to support Amendment 8, but no one seems to have spoken to it, so is it in order for me to say a few words on it? It is an important amendment because it contains really the only mention in the whole Bill of post offices. The amendment, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Kramer, and the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, talks about the Treasury considering

“the effectiveness of alternative frameworks, including the Post Office Banking Framework, in providing access to banking and cash services”.

That is an important aspect of all this.

Increasingly, we are seeing that people, particularly in rural areas or areas where there is high deprivation where people do not have access to online facilities and do not particularly want to go online because they do not trust banks enough to go online or they do not trust the internet, are using their post offices. The post offices could be doing so much more to widen access to cash and money.

I draw attention—although I am sure most noble Lords will have seen it—to the National Federation of SubPostmasters 18-page report on the access to banking services review, which shows statistically just how much more post offices are being used by people and how they could be used to provide even more services. When banks close in areas now, it is usually the post office that picks up a lot of that business.

I welcome the Minister to his position, and I hope he will say whether the Government are serious about increasing the use of post offices, not just for some of the issues to do with banking. You can no longer pay your television licence—if you still want to pay it—in the post office. So many services have been taken away from the post office, but such services would make it much easier and more accessible for people, particularly in rural communities. People trust their local post office. They find that it is somewhere they can go and get the advice and reassurance that they cannot get in a local bank because they do not ever see a bank. I have already mentioned the lack of trust.

I ask the Minister to respond to this amendment and say whether he is willing to talk directly to the National Federation of SubPostmasters to discuss these issues further and how we can make our post offices more vibrant and involved with the local community by being able to offer them the services that they want.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. As this is the first time I have spoken on Report, I declare my technology interests as set out in the register, as adviser to the Crown Estate and Simmons and Simmons LLP and as non-executive director at Avalanche Foundation and Avalanche (BVI) Inc. I shall speak to Amendment 8, which I had pleasure in signing.

How many brands or businesses have we in the UK that have been on our high street for over half a millennium? That is what we have with the post office, which rode into our lives in 1511 and continues to have just shy of 12,000 branches up and down the country. Whatever happens with digital—and finance certainly is going to become, and already in many areas is, digital—we need, and must support, physical presence and human access to, and interaction with, finance, not least for those who find themselves at the sharpest end of financial exclusion. As I have already mentioned, financial inclusion often and perniciously goes hand in hand with digital exclusion, compounding both of those exclusionary forces.

The post office has a unique role. Of course, it has had well-known difficulties recently, but that does not diminish the potential role it can play as other financial services providers retreat, and have already retreated, from so many of our high streets. It can be the core of the community with inclusive, accessible finance at that core and rippling out all kinds of other financial, digital and small “s” social services. It has such positive potential. We have seen this with the hub model, and I would be interested in the Minister’s response as to whether the Government believe we have enough hubs, whether the plan for hubs is ambitious enough and whether we need to bring other players into this hub model to ensure that, wherever you are, whoever you are, in the country, in socioeconomics, you can have effective access to finance and through that meaningful, sustainable and often physical access to cash and financial services. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response to this amendment.