Business of the House

Ben Lake Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Maynard]

There has certainly been a degree of confusion over what is happening at the Churchill Hospital. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) was clear in the Chamber yesterday, and no one currently undergoing cancer treatment at the Churchill Hospital should in any way doubt that their treatment will continue. I would welcome any opportunity to make the situation at the Churchill Hospital clear.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

May we have a statement on the records that the Government hold of former Ministry of Defence civil servants who served overseas, particularly on how such individuals should proceed if they want to access their service records? A constituent of mine served in the former British forces education service and taught in British military schools in Germany, but following a subject access request to the MOD he was told that no record of his service exists. When I wrote to the MOD on his behalf, I was advised that he should submit yet another subject access request, even though he has already done so twice. My constituent requires proof of service so that his grandchildren may claim their British passports, so a written statement with some clear guidance is urgently needed.

[Paul Maynard]

That is clearly an important matter for the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. The Leader of the House is always assiduous in following up on issues raised in the Chamber during business questions, and I am sure that she will pick this one up and deal with it through the MOD to seek further clarification.

Banks and Communities

Ben Lake Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for East Lothian (Martin Whitfield) on securing a debate on a matter of the highest importance for communities across the United Kingdom. West Wales was home to some of the first banking networks, set up at the end of the 18th century to facilitate the booming trade of sheep and cattle and to allow Welsh drovers to deposit large sums of money safely on their way to and from London. Is it not therefore tragically ironic that we now face a situation where these very same rural communities, home to some of the earliest banking networks, could soon be deprived of any at all?

Nowhere, perhaps, is that precariousness more apparent than in Ceredigion. The seaside towns of Aberaeron and New Quay have lost bank branches, while the old market towns of Llandysul and Tregaron recently made headlines by becoming towns without any banks at all. The recent round of closures means larger towns in Ceredigion losing branches. It is important to note that, beyond the impact that those recent decisions will have on Cardigan and Lampeter, the consequences will be doubly felt by some of the other towns in the county. When they lost their own branches, the communities were told they could visit the branches in Cardigan and Lampeter instead. Now those branches are closing.

I do not deny that the way people bank is changing, but I argue that the way it is changing differs across the country, which needs to be reflected, as the hon. Member for East Lothian mentioned. For many in rural areas, new and alternative ways of accessing banking services are simply not possible due to a lack of broadband. As a consequence, online banking and card payments, let alone contactless payments, are a distant prospect for many.

In rural areas, the closure of a branch often requires transferring to another branch many miles away, which poses a problem for older people, those with poor mobility, and those living in rural communities where transport links are few and far between. What is more, small business owners find themselves having to close shop to travel 20 or 30-odd miles one way to the nearest branch, merely to bank their takings. It is not sustainable for many small businesses to close for an afternoon or a day just to travel to the nearest bank.

Ultimately, the best way to combat the impact of the bank closures would be to develop a publicly supported community bank network along the lines of the German community banking model. In the interim, an urgent summit of all UK retail banks should be pursued, to discuss their plans regarding the branch networks. For too long, the approach taken has been reactive, waiting for decisions and then allowing them to happen. If we continue in the same way, hon. Members should be in no doubt that our communities will be starved of essential services, announcement by devastating announcement.

We must take the initiative so that we can prevent further closures. That aim could be secured by strengthening the access to banking protocol and introducing greater requirements on banks to abide by their responsibilities to the communities that have long supported them. Arranging a summit of all the major banks would also be an opportunity for the Government to facilitate greater efforts to maintain an equivalent level of banking service in rural areas. Why, as the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) mentioned, should we not pursue greater co-operation or perhaps even the establishment of banking hubs, where existing high street banks can co-locate rather than completely vacating rural towns?

Before Christmas, the Minister referred to action he had taken to raise awareness of the services in the post office. Why do we not pursue that avenue further, and build a proper community bank on the existing infrastructure of the post office? That would entail a significant amount of initial investment, since not every post office is currently configured to undertake such functions and staff are certainly not adequately resourced. However, increasing banking provision in local post offices could offer one way of ensuring that communities and businesses in rural areas continue to be able to access essential banking services. A lot needs to be done if that is to work, and it needs to be done urgently.

Public Sector Pay

Ben Lake Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I thank the 331 people in my constituency who signed the petition, and I commend the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on very eloquently opening the debate. I am grateful to the hundreds of local people who have emailed and written to me before the debate and I am pleased to be speaking on their behalf in calling for action on public sector pay.

It is important that, as we take part in this debate, we remember the backdrop against which it is taking place. We have the worst wage growth in 210 years, and public sector workers have seen their spending power reduced because of rising inflation. The average household has lost £7.74 per week due to higher prices of essential shopping items such as bread, milk and cheese. The Governor of the Bank of England has warned that households have slashed spending as incomes continue to be squeezed by a weak pound, which is almost certainly not helped by the Brexit shambles that is unfolding. We are witnessing the longest fall in living standards since records began. Under this Government, whose Members have been very silent in this debate, inequality has been exacerbated and, in the words of the Resolution Foundation, we are witnessing

“the biggest increase in inequality since Thatcher.”

This morning, I attended the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s launch in central London of its report on the state of UK poverty in 2017. The report states that one in eight workers now lives in poverty. Essentially, that blows a hole in the argument that work is the best route out of poverty, especially if we are condoning embarrassing levels of poverty pay. The report said that 47% of working-age adults and the poorest fifth of the population now spend one third of their income purely on housing costs. The recent Budget was a missed opportunity for the Chancellor to end pay restraint for our hard-working public sector workers. The Chancellor should have followed the commitment of the Scottish Government, which will lay out its draft Budget next month. Our finance secretary Derek Mackay has already said that the Scottish Government will lift the public sector pay cap, even if Westminster—

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that public sector workers across the UK deserve better than the current policy pursued by the UK Government. However, does he agree that in the interim, devolved Governments have a responsibility to do all that they can to mitigate the worst effects of the public sector pay cap, and to ensure that our public sector workers get a fair deal, regardless of where they are in the UK?

[David Linden]

I wholeheartedly agree with the hon. Gentleman. I very much welcome the engagement between the Scottish Government in Edinburgh and our trade unions on the public sector pay cap.

During the September recess, I undertook something that may be a bit unusual for an MP, called In Your Shoes, where I spent a day every week doing a different job: a day pulling pints and calling the bingo at the Tavern bar in Parkhead, a day with the Easterhouse citizens advice bureau, a day teaching children at Our Lady of Peace Primary School, and a day out with police officers in Baillieston. One of the last days that I did was at Easterhouse fire station. Over the course of the day, the guys at Easterhouse fire station were incredibly welcoming; they had me dressed up in all the outfits, going on the drills with them and using the ladders and hoses. After that, we went back to the fire station. I was grateful to the officers at Easterhouse fire station and the Fire Brigades Union representative, Thomas Hanlon, for their thoughts and comments on the challenges that they face. I was struck by the bravery of those guys, because when a building is on fire, they run towards it, as we saw happen at Grenfell tower. We MPs are on £76,000 a year, and the reality is that none of us would run into a burning building, but that is the reality of what those guys do. The Government will say that we are all in this together, but the reality is that we are not. We are not running into the burning buildings with those firefighters. The least that the Government can do is give them the pay rise that they deserve. Anything else is just lip service.