David Mundell
Main Page: David Mundell (Conservative - Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale)
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock). Like him, I want to thank all those in my constituency who have worked so hard during the period of lockdown: our NHS staff, carers, key workers, volunteers and community groups. I particularly want to thank NHS staff on both sides of the border who dealt with the unwelcome recent spike in coronavirus cases in the Gretna and Annan areas and brought that outbreak under control.
I want to use this opportunity to highlight a concern that I have that one unintended consequence of covid might be a limiting of the ability to use cash and, in the wider context, of access to cash, about which I have spoken on a number of occasions in this House. I greatly welcome the fact that the Government intend to legislate on access to cash, and I hope that, in what I am sure will be his very eloquent closing remarks, my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew), in a rare appearance at the Dispatch Box, will be able to tell us when the Government intend to bring forward that legislation. I now have a further serious concern, however: even if we resolve the ability to access cash, will people be able to use it, given the number of outlets that are now saying that they will not take cash?
The issues around access are well-rehearsed in many ways. We have had the closure of bank branches and cash machines converting from being free to having a charge. Until I became involved in this issue, I did not realise that most cash withdrawal transactions are for small sums of £10 or £20; a £3 charge in relation to a withdrawal of that amount is a hugely disproportionate mark-up. There are also concerns about those machines, either free or otherwise, disappearing, for example, in Lochmaben in my constituency, where constituents have been alarmed about a planning application to remove a cash machine that is vital to the community. There are also complicated arguments around interchange rates, on which the banks and cash machine providers operate. Many of the providers are now looking for a regional interchange rate, so that the rates are different depending on where the machine is and the amount of use and its priority in the community.
I am sure that those important issues will be debated when the access to cash legislation comes forward, along with the very welcome community access to cash pilot. I was pleased to be able to speak to Natalie Ceeney, chair of the board that is overseeing that pilot. The pilot is looking at not just direct access but one of the other big issues that most of us face in our constituencies, of community and voluntary groups in particular who raise money and then need to deposit cash, as do lots of small businesses. These organisations and businesspeople are finding it increasingly difficult to deposit that cash, so in the wider context of the access to cash argument, a deposit scheme must be available.
Access to cash is about being able not just to get that cash but to spend it. In a previous Parliament, I introduced a Bill to guarantee that Scottish bank notes would be accepted here in England and the other parts of the United Kingdom, and the issue I faced was not about legal tender, and the arguments people make about that, but the fact that retailers and service providers can refuse any form of payment and increasingly are refusing cash payment. A myth has developed that somehow cash is dirty and can spread coronavirus, which is completely untrue; the Minister could help on that. I would like to hear the Government make that much clearer.
As the Bank for International Settlements reported in April, the likelihood of transmitting covid-19
“via banknotes is low when compared with…credit card terminals or PIN pads.”
We must be clear that cash is safe and, as with any contact, safer after people wash their hands and take other measures. Cash is not a spreader of coronavirus.
We do not want to see a back-door move to a so-called cashless society. Recent reports indicate that 8 million of our fellow citizens could not cope in a cashless or cash sparse society, so let us not end up there without thinking it through. Let us see the Government bring forward their access to cash legislation, but let us also make sure that people can use that cash.