Gerald Jones
Main Page: Gerald Jones (Labour - Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare)Department Debates - View all Gerald Jones's debates with the HM Treasury
(3 years, 2 months ago)
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Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) on securing today’s important debate. As we have heard, we could all be forgiven for thinking that we do not need cash any more, particularly with the onset of technology, such as online banking, contactless payments and Apple Pay. Technology is convenient in helping some people organise their budgets and pay their bills, but we must not assume that it is convenient for everyone. We should be mindful that a lack of access to cash can cause real issues—for some people, it can be detrimental to their quality of life. As we make advances in technology, it is essential that we do not leave people behind and I fear there is a real danger of doing so.
In the communities of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, which I am proud to represent, access to cash is important. I am sure there are many similar geographically isolated communities and people who use services in these communities every day. These services include the corner shop, paying for doorstep milk deliveries, the window cleaner, the bakery that delivers bread door-to-door, or the local social club or pub. The list goes on, and many of these services rely solely on cash.
Over the last two years, I, along with many other Members here, have been working with LINK to identify isolated communities that did not have access to a free-to-use cash machine and as a result were unfairly paying a fee to withdraw their money. As a result of this work, at the latter end of 2019, LINK provided two additional cash machines in two isolated communities in my constituency: Bedlinog and New Tredegar. During the past two years, these two machines have distributed over £2 million to local people without charging withdrawal fees, saving local people thousands of pounds and with the majority of that money spent locally. Much of that time has been during the pandemic and that confined people to local areas, but even so this clearly demonstrates how communities rely on cash.
Access to cash is hugely important and we urgently need to focus on it given the number of banks and post offices that have closed in recent years. When the banks closed, residents were told not to worry as they would still have banking services and access to cash at post offices, but in some communities the post offices were the next to close. I had this very issue in the community of Treharris, where they have been without a post office for over two and a half years. We need a joined-up approach.
Finally, only a week ago I spoke to an elderly constituent who made the change—although she was not very happy about it—from having her state pension at the post office to having it paid into her bank account. Despite this, she still withdraws her pension amount from the bank every week as she relies heavily on the cash for her weekly budgeting, and she told me that she simply could not cope any other way. It is clear that we need action. I hope the Minister will give us reassurance and some indication of how the Government will address this issue in the forthcoming legislation.