Access to Banking Hubs: Hertfordshire

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I commend the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) for securing this debate. He said that it is his first Westminster Hall debate; no doubt, now that he has the taste for it, he will be back next week for another one. I jest, of course, but I am sure that he will be back at some time in the future.

I am a strong supporter of banking hubs and offering communities the service that they deserve, so it is great to be present both to support the hon. Gentleman, and to ask the Minister for help constructively across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Banks are not closing just in South West Hertfordshire; they are closing everywhere else in the United Kingdom. Over the past six or seven years, 11 banks have closed in my constituency. We feel the pain of that even today.

Speaking locally, from the point of view of my constituency, local high streets in Northern Ireland have witnessed a series of banking closures over the past 12 to 24 months. The Ards peninsula, where I live, is a banking desert. All the banks that were on the peninsula have closed. In fairness, they have been replaced by two credit unions, and the post offices have been strengthened, so there are some things to fall back on—but the banks on the Ards peninsula are all away. They went to other towns and bigger cities, which do not have the same accessibility for those who need them, especially those who are vulnerable, elderly and isolated. The hon. Gentleman mentioned bus services, but they are not always available to get to the banks or even to the cities, so the accessibility of the services is limited.

Banking and post office services are used daily and are essential to the lives of our constituents. Northern Ireland has a range of banking hubs across the province. This year, it was announced that two are to be developed in my constituency. One has opened in Comber. It is in an excellent location, exactly in the centre of the town. The post office is there, and the four banks—two of which used to operate in the town—do a half-day each in the Comber hub. From the point of view of a potentially good service, the hub is a step in the right direction. The other hub, in Ballynahinch, is to open shortly as well. The same offer will be available there; the banks that were in the town will do a half-day each and the post office is available within that. Will that meet all the banking requests that people have? Probably not—but it does, by and large, give people access to the banks.

The problem I have with bank hubs is that, between when the banks closed and when the hubs were instated, there was a time of perhaps two years. Cash Access UK is delivering those hubs to support residents with the services that they require. We undertake a lot of discussion nowadays on digital inclusion and exclusion. While it is great that we as a society are able to modernise, that does sometimes mean our elderly population, who are used to doing things a certain way, are left behind. Face-to-face services that are accessible for them are imperative. I hope that in future we can look to a greater scope of hubs across the UK, which will also increase employment in local areas.

I conclude with this comment as an example of the problem we are facing: last year one of my staff bought her first house, and her solicitor required a printed statement from her help to buy ISA for Barclays bank. The Barclays in Newtownards, where she lives, closed in 2023. The Barclays mobile service in Bangor, around a 15-minute drive away, could not carry out that function as it did not have the services available. She had to travel to the centre of Belfast, which is 40 minutes by car, to obtain a single, one-sided document. Banking hubs and mobile vans are great, but they must be accessible in terms of what services they can carry out for people; otherwise, in many cases, there is no convenience. Banking hubs delivers some things, but they do not deliver them all.