Santander Closures and Local Communities

Debate between Ben Lake and David Linden

Thursday 14th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[David Linden]

That is spot on, because there is a question of sustainability for postmasters. We know that a huge number of previous Crown post offices have been transitioned to franchise partners, and we are seeing evidence that those partners may no longer find the offering attractive. Interestingly, Martin Kearsley, the banking director of Post Office Ltd, gave evidence to the Treasury Committee. When questioned on whether the Post Office makes a profit by offering basic banking services on behalf of providers, he answered:

“It does not currently. We are in discussions with the banks to change that position…What we do is charge the banks for the provision of the network and the transactions their customers do with us. We then share that model with our postmasters.”

We know that profitability is an issue for postmasters, but it is not the only one. When questioned about the fairness of postmasters having to offer banking services, Mr Kearsley said:

“we have seen a huge increase in the amount of cash coming into our branches. That is challenging, we recognise that and we are working hard to address it. That means postmasters spend a lot of time counting cash. We have provided new equipment to try to help. We have modernised and streamlined the processes, so that that can be done more effectively and rapidly, but we recognise that that is a challenge for them right now and we continue to innovate to fix those problems.”

The question is how on earth we can reasonably expect the post office network to pick up the slack from banks that have abandoned their customers, when the current model is demonstrably not sustainable.

That leads on to the question of the level of service provided. Although many everyday banking transactions can be completed at post offices, there are restrictions on what can and cannot be done. There are limits on deposits and withdrawals, for example. Currently, only 5% of consumers withdraw cash, and 2% deposit cash, primarily at a post office, and there is anecdotal evidence from Citizens Advice to suggest that level of service may be a major factor in that.

The lack of regulation is also concerning. While banks are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the Post Office is not. Banking customers are not necessarily Post Office customers, so the same duty of care simply does not exist. Let us face it: franchise holders are in this to make a living, and banking is not profitable for them. When staffing and training costs are factored in, banking can be loss-making for post offices. All things considered, while I am sure that some postmasters will go above and beyond, they are certainly not compelled or incentivised to do so.

When all is considered, it is little surprise, then, that post offices suddenly close. There are 35 fewer permanent post offices in Scotland today than there were in 2011. On top of that, communities continue to be plagued by temporary closures. In my own constituency, Tollcross post office closed in December 2017. Although the Post Office calls it a temporary closure, in reality it has still not found someone willing to take the service on, 14 months later. That is just one community suddenly left without service.

In the neighbouring constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, I gather that the post office in Rutherglen closed suddenly without explanation last June, leaving thousands of people without service in what is a highly populated area with a busy high street. In the Glasgow North West constituency, the Dumbarton Road post office closed suddenly in November last year, with local residents left in the lurch ever since. When these offices shut, there is no replacement service. The Post Office does not offer a mobile service in the interim. There is no universal service obligation in place to ensure that an alternative service is offered on a temporary basis while the problem is fixed. In reality, communities are simply left without.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He makes the good point that when branches close, there are often no alternative sources for people to access cash and banking services. My hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) fully supports the hon. Gentleman’s endeavours, but unfortunately he is engaged in the debate in the main Chamber. My hon. Friend has seen, just as I have in Ceredigion, that when branches close, the post office network is often simply not there, and communities are left in the lurch.

European Union Citizenship

Debate between Ben Lake and David Linden

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Ben Lake]

I respectfully thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I suggest that what the EU may or may not do is not a matter for this House. I do not think that I have cast any aspersions on what the EU might want to do. What I am saying is that it is in the gift of the Government, and this place, to pursue associate European citizenship to ensure that our young people—in fact not just young people but citizens of the UK old and young—can still enjoy the rights that we currently have.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech. Does he share my concern that a fourth-year student at Lochend High School in Easterhouse should be able to go on to the Erasmus programme in the next year or two, but because of the vague promises that the Prime Minister has made, that opportunity will not be there? It is therefore the UK Government who are taking such opportunities away from the young people in the east of Glasgow.

[Ben Lake]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I agree that the uncertainty is certainly not helpful to anybody. When I speak to a lot of young people, those are precisely the concerns that they raise with me. They do not know what the future holds. At one time, they did know—they were able to plan ahead to do the things that their elder siblings or family members had been able to enjoy. Now they find themselves in the daunting situation of not being able to do so.

My point is that Brexit need not rid UK nationals—young or old—of those rights, and international law is quite clear on that. How UK nationals retain their European citizenship after Brexit is therefore a matter of political will. It is for the Government to propose a model to achieve that, and to negotiate so that it is included in the withdrawal agreement.

Associate citizenship not only presents a possible solution but offers much-needed compromise for an embattled Government and a way to heal the deep divisions that have emerged across the UK. Let me reiterate a point that I made earlier to the hon. Member for Chippenham (Michelle Donelan): this will be a model in which someone could opt in or refuse to opt in—the choice will be theirs. It will be a way to heal divisions. The former Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening), said that

“if Brexit does not work for young people in our country, in the end it will not be sustainable”.—[Official Report, 17 January 2018; Vol. 634, c. 918.]

Public Sector Pay

Debate between Ben Lake and David Linden

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.

Unaccompanied Child Refugees: Europe

Debate between Ben Lake and David Linden

Thursday 2nd November 2017 Commons Chamber

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

Since my election to this place in June, the issue of unaccompanied child refugees has been a major topic in my postbag and inbox, so I am glad we are having this debate. I commend the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen), who has already set the bleak scene in Calais, for securing it.

Before saying a little about the Dublin regulations, I want to touch briefly on the Dubs amendment.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion) (PC)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Dubs amendment, far from being a pull factor, disrupts the traffickers who seek to profit from smuggling and the exploitation of vulnerable children by establishing a safe and legal route for those seeking asylum?

[David Linden]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the great misfortunes of this debate is that the Government talk a lot about a pull factor but have published absolutely no evidence; it is a case of putting up or shutting up.

I want to touch on the British Government’s woefully inadequate response to what is the worst humanitarian crisis since world war two. To be clear, we on the nationalist Benches would like to see the Dubs scheme continued to enable the UK to receive at least 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees from Europe. Moreover, we want the British Government to increase the total number of refugees they intend to settle under the Syrian vulnerable person resettlement programme.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting Sarah Kirby, from the International Rescue Committee, who shared with me some very harrowing statistics and data about the number of unaccompanied and separated children in Europe. Europol reports that there are almost 90,000 lone refugee children in Europe. Indeed, the UNHCR estimates that in 2016 about 33,800 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arrived in Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Spain. The majority of those—some 26,000 children—arrived in Italy.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the UK Government had axed the Dubs amendment on refugee children and capped it at 480. The refugee crisis has not gone away and people are still fleeing the continuing violence in Syria and other countries, which creates a very serious risk that the numbers of unaccompanied children becoming prey to human traffickers will increase. Her Majesty’s Government need to do their part by continuing to provide places under the Dubs scheme when local authority capacity is available, as we know it is.

I commend many of the local authorities in Scotland that have embraced, with typically warm hospitality, many refugees from Syria. My own city of Glasgow has been outstanding when it comes to welcoming what are now affectionately known as “refuweegees”. In fact, Scotland has welcomed over a quarter of the total number of Syrian refugees in the UK.

I have some questions for the Minister. Will Her Majesty’s Government consider moving the date of entry to Europe to after 20 March 2016, if indeed there are still spaces available under the Dubs amendment? Given that there are currently 2,590 unaccompanied children in Greece and more than 13,000 in Italy, what assessment has been made of the UK’s ability to accept more than the already agreed 480 children? Sadly, it took a dead toddler to wash up on a beach and photos appearing on the front pages of our newspapers to make most of us sit up and take note of the stark horror of this humanitarian disaster.