Adam Dance
Main Page: Adam Dance (Liberal Democrat - Yeovil)Department Debates - View all Adam Dance's debates with the HM Treasury
Face-to-Face Banking: Rural Areas
Adam Dance Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this debate.
When Dad died a few years ago, I was able to go with Mum to our local bank branch to deal with all the issues that come from a bereavement. Subsequently, Barclays has closed that branch in Ely and its branch in Newmarket. That means that the residents of Ely and East Cambs no longer have that facility available to them. I am grateful that Barclays has opened a hub in Ely, but it does not provide all the services that a bank used to. I have a lot of farmers in my constituency. They need a bank branch that understands their business, the ebb and flow of their cash flow, and, in a summer like this one, the extra pressures that their businesses are under.
We heard from the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) that when he came back from Spain he was able to deposit a cheque online. Community groups cannot do that. As they have two signatories, they have to go to a bank or post office to deposit cheques. I heard on Sunday from someone who had gone in to pay some cash from his community group. The post office refused to take the Scottish notes, as many of my Scottish colleagues will have experienced, no doubt—that is a problem as well. As we have heard from everyone, Link just looks at access to cash. That is not the real problem any more; it is about access to that wide range of banking services.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
With fraud on the rise—we are seeing quite a lot of it lately—does my hon. Friend agree that all banking hubs should have fraud-trained staff?
Charlotte Cane
I agree. As we have heard already, bank scams are a real nightmare for people. If people can go into their local branch and talk to people who know them, they are much better protected against online scams. I am afraid that we have basically advised my mum not to do online banking, and not to click on any links, unless one of us is with her, because there is too much risk. If there were a local branch, things would be so much better.
I call on the Minister to seriously consider widening Link’s remit so that it looks at the wider range of banking services and we can keep them in our various constituencies.