NatWest: Account Terminations and Branch Closures

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am grateful for that intervention, because that is precisely what we intend to do. We are placing the existing voluntary arrangements set up by the banking sector on a statutory footing. There is a consultation out at the moment by the FCA, part of which is asking what factors and criteria should go into any assessment—the number of people in the area, the number of SMEs affected, the impact on the vulnerable and what other cash access services there are. Of course, rurality will impact on all those factors, so it will be taken into account.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I suspect that I am not the only Member of the House to have noticed a marked deterioration in customer service from the banks over the past 20 years. Digitisation was supposed to improve that, but it has got much worse. Of course, this is generic—witness the comments made about HMRC—but banking, of all areas of commerce, depends more than anything else on trust. Trust is greatly enhanced by personal contact and greatly reduced when there is none. The Minister said earlier of HMRC that you are always given six options—yes, you are, but, mysteriously, none ever seems to apply appropriately to the question I have. So has she carried out a simple survey of customer satisfaction with banking and, if so, what are the results?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government do recognise that banks hold a key position in our society. We need to ensure that our banking system meets the needs of that society. Certain banks, as I am sure the noble Lord is aware, pride themselves on keeping their bricks and mortar on the high street. If customers require that sort of service, they should be able to vote with their feet.

Avanti West Coast

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am delighted to be able to tell the noble Lord that currently 90% of Avanti trains arrive within 15 minutes of their scheduled arrival time. That is up from 75% in early January. I am sure that noble Lords can see the trajectory. The dividend to which he refers related to a financial period to March 2021, well over two years ago now and not related to the current performance issues.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been travelling on the west coast line for more than 40 years. Admittedly this is anecdotal, but my experience was that until Covid the service was actually quite good on Avanti. So was Virgin before Avanti. It was certainly better than the east coast line, quite apart from the fact that the east coast line went to Edinburgh whereas the west coast line went to the fair city of Glasgow.

Twice the Minister has mentioned infrastructure problems. Historically that was the problem with the east coast line, but there was sufficient investment to improve it. What is the nature of the infrastructure problems on the west coast line and why have they not been dealt with in the 13 years that the Government have been in charge?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government are putting record investment into our railway infrastructure. There are two issues around infrastructure. The first is the long-term plans that need to be put in place to upgrade it, but there are also short-term issues. For example, overnight there was cable theft at Wolverhampton. Cable theft is not Avanti’s fault, but it has caused some of its trains to be delayed this morning. We have to clamp down on the short-term problems but also continue to invest in the west coast main line, which is exactly what we are doing.

Ryanair: Afrikaans Language Test

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Thursday 9th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not sure I can commit to doing that, although I do recognise that Ryanair is based in Ireland. There are a number of people, organisations and Governments involved in this entire sorry debacle that could put pressure on Ryanair to make it see sense.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, did the Minister have the opportunity this week to listen to or watch the debate on the Irish language regulations coming to this House? Irrespective of what view people took on that, one thing is very obvious: the great sensitivity of issues concerning language, particularly in Ireland at this moment. Is it therefore not ironic that this crass move should have been made by Ryanair? When she is exchanging comments with Ryanair, could she bring this to its attention?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am not sure there is much more I can add to that. I entirely agree with the noble Lord.

Electric Vehicles: Charging Points

Debate between Baroness Vere of Norbiton and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Monday 14th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

The Government take the issue of interoperability of charging points very seriously. We are seeing the market moving towards a smaller number of varying charges, and we will consider how we take that forward.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)]

My Lords, I am just old enough, as the House was reminded earlier, to remember us being told by my Government what a great idea it was to move to diesel. My question to the Minister is about electricity consumption. Given the commitment to all-electric cars by the middle of the 2030s, plus cryptocurrency, plus the exponential growth of smart technology, plus 5G—I could go on but I will not—can the Minister assure us that a very solid impact assessment has been made of the aggregate demand of these technological developments on the requirement for electricity generation in 15 years’ time? Can she tell us where it is going to come from?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

Unfortunately, the noble Lord’s question goes a little bit beyond my brief today, and indeed beyond my department. However, I will be very happy to speak to my colleagues in BEIS, who have responsibility for energy demand in the future, and ask them to write to him to set out exactly how the forecasts are being made and how they will be met.