Local Bank Branch Closures

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amy Callaghan]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. There are cash deserts across Scotland now, and the Government should reflect on that and take new action.

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

As my hon. Friend will know, the Bank of Scotland wants to close its branch in Glasgow’s Govan ward, which means that 30,000 people will be without a bank; but there is another problem. When a bank closes, its ATM closes as well, and in my experience when a bank closes its ATM, the other ATMs that were free start charging. That is another attack on vulnerable customers, is it not?

[Amy Callaghan]

It is as if my hon. Friend had read my mind. That is exactly what I was about to mention. People on low incomes often use cash to budget, and more and more of our constituents will be doing so as the cost of living crisis worsens. Evidence from Which? indicates that there are 130 of those cash deserts in Scotland—places where there is no access to either a branch or an ATM within a reasonable distance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Griffith]

I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is deliberately failing to understand, but the protection of access to cash and the ability to deposit cash—that is important if we want businesses to continue to use and accept cash—has a requirement that people will have easy, convenient access to a free ATM within 3 miles in rural areas and within 1 mile in urban areas. That is the guidance we issued a matter of weeks ago.

[Chris Stephens]

Will the Minister give way?

[Andrew Griffith]

I will take one final intervention, but hon. Members would learn more if they allowed me to make some progress.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank the Minister for being most generous; as he knows, I have been trying to intervene for a while. There is an important issue about free ATMs and those that charge. Is he monitoring that? When a branch closes, there is clear behaviour whereby the ATMs around and about start charging.

[Andrew Griffith]

I would be interested to see evidence of that. The paid-for ATMs simply do not count in any way towards the provision of free access to cash. In the constituency of the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire, there are 51 free-to-use ATMs. Only those, not the ones that charge for withdrawals, will count towards that condition of making sure our communities have decent and continued access to cash.

I understand that access to cash is just one thing and that an ATM does not provide the full range of banking services—the post offices do—but we have started to talk about banking hubs and more than 80 have been announced to date. I know that relatively few have been delivered but they are a relatively novel feature. If hon. Members who are to have a banking hub would like to see that delivery, they should work with their local planning authorities, as the biggest single impediment to opening these new banking hubs is getting through the planning process. I know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) is looking forward to a banking hub in his constituency. I made it a priority earlier this year to visit London’s first banking hub, in Acton, and I recently visited the Brixham hub. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Dr Huq) is certainly not a Conservative, but I will be happy to work with colleagues to put in place these state-of-the-art hubs, which allow people not just to withdraw and deposit cash, but to carry out a much wider range of community banking services. That is very important.