Covid-19: Access to and Acceptance of Cash

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell, which I think is a first in the 21 years that we have known each other.

I will dwell briefly on cash machines, because excellent reference has already been made by the two previous speakers. I commend the hon. Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) for two very fine speeches, which will mean a lot to my constituents in the far north of Scotland.

There is a village called Durness in north-west Sutherland, which is the northernmost and westernmost inhabited community on the British mainland. Every year, they have a tremendous Highland games and tourists come from far and wide. I remember my predecessor bar one, Robert Maclennan, the late Lord Maclennan of Rogart, being chieftain of the games some years ago, resplendent in kilt and everything else. He greeted me very warmly and said he had had six glasses of whisky. He was in extremely good form.

There was a cash machine in Durness, run by the Bank of Ireland, part of Robbie and Fiona Mackay’s shop. They used to tell me that the amount of money that came out of that machine the day before the games and during the games was absolutely staggering—tens of thousands of pounds. That was, of course, then spent on whisky or on whatever else at the highland games and it went straight back into the local economy. Then the machine was taken away. As Robbie Mackay said, “They can get cashback in the shop, but I can’t stay open until the wee small hours; I can’t be open at 6 in the morning.” That was the problem and it became a huge cause célèbre in that part of Sutherland.At the end of the day we did get a cash machine back in, but as the hon. Member for Makerfield said, getting them back again once they have been closed is a near-impossible task. I can tell Members that it is: I have the T-shirt. For every one we win, we lose a lot of others.



The second anecdote—just to colour in the cash machine issue—is that some years ago, maybe even 10 years ago, there were huge gales in the north of Scotland and the electricity went out—not for a few hours, not for a day, but for three, four or even five days in some communities in my present constituency. That meant, of course, that the cash machine did not work, and neither did contactless, so it is worth remembering that the present electronic regime is vulnerable to an electricity failure.

That is as much as I want to say about cash machines, except that they absolutely underpin my constituency. Of course we can withdraw cash from bank branches, but as I have said an awful lot of times during my three years in this place, we now only have one bank branch in the entire county of Sutherland. That is 2,028 square miles; it is a vast county, with one bank branch, in Golspie. That means that people have to make a 150-mile round trip to go to a bank branch, which is causing huge difficulties for my constituents.

As all colleagues here today know—I have mentioned this many times in this House—it seems as if there is a sickening liturgy of closures, one after the other, which we are unable to do anything about. Of course I am told, “You can use the post office.” That is not the silver bullet, because—as has already been alluded to—many is the post office that has already shut, or is shutting, in the relevant town, and the distances to get to the nearest post office are impossible. In no way do I denigrate what the Post Office does: it is a splendid institution, dating from the 19th century, and it is something that we can be very proud of as a British innovation.

I apologise for repeating myself, but one thing that I and others have been advocating is a joint banking hub approach, whereby the clearing banks work together to form a joint hub that would be owned in Scotland by the main clearing banks. That would mean a human face or faces behind the counter, who can advise. I bank electronically—I do it through my mobile—but I got a fright quite recently when I saw a debit coming off my account that I did not know anything about, and it was actually a banking fraud. Now, by dialling various numbers and taking a long time over it I got to the bottom of it, but had I been older than I am, or had I been a vulnerable person, that would have been very frightening. What better than to be able to go into a bank branch and ask, “What is happening here?” and be told, “Ah, this is a fraud we know about. We will kill it right now and get the money returned to you”?

I am not having a go at the Government, because the Government have actually been helpful. Before the pandemic, I had a constructive meeting with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, and I was very grateful to him for that. He thought that there was possibly some mileage in the Government looking at the concept of a jointly owned banking hub, and indeed, on the business front, that concept has already been established—not for the north of Scotland, but nearer London, I think. Before the covid outbreak, I had hoped that I could have a look at it and see how it worked, and whether we could apply the same principle to the clearing bank idea, tweaking it suitably.

The other thing about having a human face behind a counter, or in a building that really exists and is reasonably accessible to people, is the issue of depositing money. We can take money out of a cash machine, but we cannot stick it back through the slot, and during the covid pandemic I have heard from businesses that, by the very nature of what they do, have had to travel a considerable distance to bank their weekly takings. That, I suggest, is not terribly safe, not only because of the security risk—a person travelling with that amount of money on them, in their car—but, sadly, because of the likelihood of transmitting the disease. We can learn lessons from the pandemic about this.

When it comes to the idea of a hub, where there is a will, there is a way. It could be done, and what I try to say to the banks of Scotland is that it would benefit them in so many ways. I am digressing from taking cash out of machines, so I will be very brief, but I have constituents who tell me that they have a brilliant idea to start a little business, but that whereas their father or grandfather would have talked through the sums with the bank manager and the bank would have supported them to the tune of, perhaps, £20,000, my constituents cannot do that because it is not so easy now. They may have to travel somewhere far away, which, because of covid, is not so good.

I started with a light-hearted point about the Durness highland games; I conclude on the splendid galas that we have in our highlands. Wick gala is famous, and it is excellent, with great entertainment. There are lots of different acts on the backs of lorries. I remember, on one lorry, an excellent take-off of my immediate predecessor Viscount Thurso, which was very humorous; indeed, his lordship enjoyed it enormously. The way to contribute to the Wick gala is to throw money at the floats, which is caught in little nets. A lot of things that are good for civic society involve cash being given. In my hometown of Tain, people go around with buckets which money is thrown into. That is how it is done; it cannot be done with a card or contactless.

With that light-hearted point, I congratulate the hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys on securing the debate. It is super to see a constructive debate such as this taking place. I look forward with great interest to the Minister’s reply.

[David Mundell (in the Chair)]

Thank you, Mr Stone, for that—as ever—entertaining tour of your constituency. I will call Sarah Owen to speak next, and in the course of her contribution the Chair will transition to Yvonne Fovargue.

--- Later in debate ---

[David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your unexpected chairmanship, Ms Fovargue. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) not only for securing time in Westminster Hall to debate access to cash and acceptance of cash during the covid-19 pandemic, but for his continuing work on this subject, as highlighted in his very thoughtful opening speech. I am also grateful to the other participants so far—including you, Ms Fovargue—for raising a series of important points, some of which I will repeat.

This debate is urgent, because I fear that, accelerated by covid-19, we are sleepwalking quickly to a cashless society in a totally unmanaged and unprepared way, with potentially disastrous consequences for many of our constituents. I know there will be people who advocate the benefits of a cashless society, but even if that is the case, we must not proceed in this unplanned and ad hoc way. We know from research that some 17% of adults in the UK—around 8 million—would struggle in a cashless society, and those struggling the most would be the elderly, the vulnerable, the economically excluded and those in rural communities such as my Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale constituency.

Shockingly, the National Audit Office’s recent report on cash found a fragmented system of oversight, with the Financial Conduct Authority regulating banks and the Payment Systems Regulator regulating payment systems identified by the Treasury. Coherence and co-ordination is urgently needed in this regard, along with clear, robust messaging from the Government on the importance of being able to use cash, at least for the time being. In my view, the Government’s promised legislation should not just address access to cash, but make the Financial Conduct Authority responsible for regulating a well-functioning retail cash system.

When I have previously raised this issue, the ability to access cash and the cost of doing so was the primary concern, along with the need for small businesses, charities and local organisations of the type that the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) mentioned, to be able to deposit cash. Now, however, the immediate focus has to be on cash acceptance. It is pointless to access cash if people cannot use it, yet cash is increasingly refused as a means of exchange. The Bank of England noted in its quarterly bulletin that 42% of people had recently visited a store that did not accept cash. More worryingly, Which?, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys referred, conducted a survey that found that four in 10 of those who had experienced difficulties paying with cash had been left empty-handed when trying to buy groceries, and almost two in 10 had been unable to buy medicine. Indeed, I learned only yesterday of another pharmacy that has gone cashless.

Industry-collated data suggests a 71% decline in cash use between early March and mid-April of this year. Conversely, my experience is of the importance of cash to people who have relied on it during the pandemic. Cash has been the means by which local communities have supported themselves, with neighbours, friends and family buying essentials for one another. Short of handing over one’s PIN and bank card, cash was the only option for many of those who needed others to help them when faced with domestic emergencies, given that such people were mostly older or vulnerable and were certainly not users of apps, credit cards or digital banking services. Indeed, many are part of the so-called unbanked community.

As others have touched on, there is no doubt that part of the issue is the false perception that cash has not been safe to use during the pandemic. In my view, some have seized on that perception as an excuse to go cashless for their own purposes. In any event, it is just not true: as far back as April, the Bank for International Settlements advised that the risk of transmitting covid-19 via banknotes was low when compared with credit card terminals or pin pads. That view is shared by the Bank of England, which found that,

“the survival of virus on banknotes is no greater—indeed appears potentially less—than on reference surfaces representative of the many surfaces that people may come into contact with in their routine life.”

Cash is safer still if users follow the routine guidance on washing their hands regularly and on social distancing.

The Government now have a major role to play in making it absolutely clear that people should be able to use cash in routine transactions. If that is not possible on a voluntary basis among retailers and other service providers, legislation should be considered—at least for a fixed period—to support those who are least able to manage without cash in transitioning to a cashless economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys drew a useful comparison with the transition to digital television.

Amid the pushback on the use of cash, accessing and depositing cash has become increasingly difficult, with bank branch closures and the decline of free-to-use cash machines. Since 2015 there has been a 17% reduction in the number of free-to-use cash machines, and since 2010, 39% of the bank and building society branch network has closed. That has been acutely felt by local communities in my constituency, which have seen seven Royal Bank of Scotland branch closures in recent years, as well as the closure of the West Linton branch of the Bank of Scotland. Covid-19 has only added to the impetus of that trend: three other local cash machines have been lost, and the TSB in Peebles is scheduled to be shut. In your speech, Ms Fovargue, you made an important point about post offices, as did other hon. Members. Post offices in my constituency have been closed the next day because the postmaster was ill, meaning that people could not gain access to the post office.

[Jamie Stone]

The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent contribution. Does he agree that the closure of local bank branches and post offices is all part of the downward spiral of Scottish high streets?

[David Mundell]

Indeed. The challenge of the high street is a considerable one.

Although our local post offices do a good and worthwhile job where they are still in the community, they are not a silver bullet. It is sometimes suggested that everything will be sorted out by the post office. The challenge is not only in having post offices in every community in the first place, but in the considerable issues that post offices face in providing those services and, very often, operating a retail outlet. That is why we need the joined-up approach to the whole cash system, as I have said.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys mentioned, there has been a rise in the number of cash machines that charge for use. Most cash withdrawals from machines are relatively small, so the charges mean that users effectively face a 10% to 30% tax on each transaction. Generic figures on the number of free-to-use cash machines mask the scarcity of such machines in rural and deprived areas.

When I last counted, there were fewer free-to-use cash machines in the almost 1,700 square miles of my Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale constituency than can be found on or just off Victoria Street, a few moments from here. That imbalance is plain wrong and the industry must correct that. I welcome the fact that the banks, LINK and the card operators, which have come forward with innovative proposals about the interchange rate that applies to cash transactions, are all contributing to the thoughtful work that the Financial Conduct Authority and Payment Systems Regulator are undertaking, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys spoke in detail.

I was pleased to have the opportunity to discuss these issues recently with the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. I welcome his commitment to legislation and other initiatives on access to cash, but, as I have said, I hope they will go beyond access to cash and cover the entire cash system and responsibility for it. That legislation is needed now, along with the Government’s robust advocacy of our ability to use cash. Without action, our cash system is in danger of collapsing, leaving the elderly and most vulnerable to pay the price. I hope that the Minister can promise that action today as a matter of urgency.