Closure of High Street Services: Rural Areas

Catherine Fookes Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone]

My hon. Friend is right on the money, and I will return to that point shortly.

Local businesses that once thrived now struggle to compete with online giants offering convenience and lower prices. This shift has not only impacted our economy but deprived our communities of vital gathering spaces—places where people can get together, where relationships are built and strengthened, and where we can have a good natter on the street corner.

[Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. Like many places, the high streets in my constituency of Monmouthshire have taken a real battering since covid, but a recent Monmouthshire county council report found a 5% increase in people visiting Monmouth, my town, and an 8% increase in people returning to the high street in Abergavenny. Sadly, we have had 10 bank closures in the last two years and some of our towns, particularly Caldicot, are really suffering from that. A new post office has just opened, which is wonderful, and I commend the community and the local council for supporting it, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government deserve great praise for supporting banking hubs? There will be 300 banking hubs, and I am delighted that one will be opened in Monmouth.

[Jamie Stone]

I love the words “banking” and “hub”. I also know from my past experience what a lovely town Monmouth is; I had some much-loved cousins who lived just outside the town, and I knew it well some time ago.

Coming on specifically to the closure of banks, face-to-face banking is an essential part of the community, from preventing fraud and helping people who think they have been scammed to conversations about complex financial issues, which we cannot simply pick up from a letter or online. Those are fundamental functions of banks—not privileges that should be reserved for those who live in more urban areas. We know there has been a shift towards digital banking in recent times, but for many in our rural communities, including the elderly, there is not good internet access for a start, and they cannot really use those services, let alone use them to their maximum power. I know of many old people who are totally bamboozled by them.

I am not alone in these concerns. Lloyds Banking Group has recently announced the closure of 136 branches across the UK—that stopped even me in my tracks. The closures include several Bank of Scotland branches. I think that banks have a duty of public service to support local people with their financial needs, but that is a function that I fear many banks seem to have forgotten; I know not why. But there have been some reassuring solutions to the issue of banks closing, which takes me back to those welcome words “banking hubs”.

Run by the Post Office and Cash Access UK, the shared spaces have done amazing work in providing banking services in collaboration with an array of different banks.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Furniss. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for bringing this debate to Westminster Hall today. I am thinking back to when my mum and dad were shopkeepers. This was 1959, when I was only four years old—that is my age out now. I remember our shop in Ballywalter, in the country. It was the shop where people bought everything. They could buy all their groceries. They could buy anything from a nail to clothes—my mother dealt with that side of the shop. We had coal. We had venetian blinds—my goodness, can you remember venetian blinds? We also had all the meal for the cattle. Those were the shops that people had way back in those early days.

I am blessed to have not one but two great high streets in my constituency. Ballynahinch has wonderful shops, yet we all know that it would massively benefit from the proposed bypass to allow people to nip into town and come out without worrying about the commuter traffic. Newtownards, the central town for the constituency, has been a market town since its inception in the 1600s. It has a great history. It has one of the UK’s oldest market crosses—an indicator of the business carried out over hundreds of years. Indeed, we still have a thriving Saturday market. We also have independent boutique retailers that can kit people out—man and woman; boy and girl—with everything. That is the sort of shop we have.

Unfortunately, what we also have now is a rise in store closures. That is something we did not have in Newtownards for a long time, but we have definitely had it over the last year.

[Catherine Fookes]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Jim Shannon]

If the intervention is very quick, given Ms Furniss’s comments.

[Catherine Fookes]

I thank the hon. Member for allowing the intervention. His mention of that store brought to mind a wonderful store in my constituency called Handyman House, which still serves people with all the different things that he mentioned. Is the hon. Member concerned also about libraries—the fact that we must keep our libraries open, not reduce their hours? They are incredibly important for our high streets as community gathering spaces and also a space where, obviously, people can read books.

[Jim Shannon]

Absolutely. We are fortunate to have a number of libraries in my constituency—in Ballynahinch, Killyleagh and Newtownards. The draw of the libraries is really important, and I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention.

Ards truly has it all. It has won Northern Ireland High Street of the Year on multiple occasions. But we have lost a number of bank units. We lost the Halifax, Bank of Ireland and First Trust, but we retain Nationwide, Danske Bank, Santander, the Progressive Building Society and Ulster Bank, and long may that continue. I always give a Northern Ireland perspective to the debate. I am trying to be really quick, Ms Furniss. I look forward to the Minister’s response. Perhaps he can outline, as he always does, the contact with the Northern Ireland Assembly back home to ensure that we can learn from here and there can be lessons from us to people here as well.

If the Minister does not mind my respectfully saying this, I have to express concern over the issue about national insurance contributions and what that will do to all the small shops. Some of the small shops have told me about how it will affect them, and it really is quite worrying. One shop employs eight people. The profit margin of 15% comes down to 1% with all the rates, rent, employment costs and so on, but the owner still has to feed his family. The bigger stores—the Tescos and Matalans—can do better.

I will finish with this, Ms Furniss; I am ever conscious that many people want to speak. I am thankful for the Newtownards chamber of trade and its innovations, from evening markets to children’s fun days, in co-operation with the local council, Ards and North Down borough council. They are there to keep Ards thriving. I just do not see, unfortunately, the same energy top down. I hope that this debate is the beginning of changes for the high street retailers and Government working to retain and enhance their place in this country. When I speak here, I speak for every shop, not just in my constituency, but across this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, because that is where the benefits are. I look to the Minister for a positive response.