Mark Williams
Main Page: Mark Williams (Liberal Democrat - Ceredigion)Department Debates - View all Mark Williams's debates with the HM Treasury
(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) on shepherding me and the hon. Member for Wells (James Heappey) to the Backbench Business Committee to secure the debate. I thank the Committee for allowing us the opportunity to have this debate, which is important. It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). We agree on most things rural; our constituencies are not dissimilar. I was touched when the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) described that nonsensical hypothesis and the threshold of 15,000 people, and I instantly started to think about my constituency. No community there would reach that level, except the town of Aberystwyth and that would be seasonal—it would depend on a lot of students. I say that to illustrate the challenge of rurality.
The debate has been very good. We have heard about the cities and what I call semi-rural constituencies. I am going to talk about my constituency, which is particularly rural. It is 1,795 sq km, it has 147 villages and hamlets and 700 family farms—one large community. The hon. Member for Wells described Glastonbury, without the 200,000 visitors, as a smallish town with 10,000 people. A town of 10,000 people in my constituency would be a metropolis. The scenario is very different, but the people there have the same entitlements and same needs and they are still being let down by the attitude and practices of the commercial banks. That has been the message in almost every contribution that has been made.
In 2011 I spoke in a debate in this place about bank closures. The number of branches had halved, from 20,000 in 1988 to about 9,300 then, and that figure has dropped further since. We can have a debate about the reliability of statistics. That is perhaps something on which the banks themselves should reflect, but the University of Nottingham report—the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) alluded to this—said that
“the rate of closure has slowed more recently”
and that seems to be the case only because of
“the much reduced stock of branches”.
Hardly a positive sign.
The decline is certainly not abating in rural areas. Over the past year, more than 600 bank branches have closed and now 1,200 communities have lost all their banks, putting our high streets and market towns in jeopardy. That is something the banks said would not happen—they said the last bank in the town would stay one way or another.
None of us can deny that there has been a shift in how many people access banking services. For many, that has led to more options and more flexibility from mobile and online banking. According to the British Bankers Association, mobile banking apps have become the No. 1 way that people bank, with 22 million downloads of banking apps, and that is forecast to increase hugely over the next few years. Like the hon. Member for Ynys Môn, I have a cheque book. I will keep it going as long as I can, or as long as the banks allow me.
Many businesses will bank either through call centres or distance banking relationship managers. I always think the description “relationship manager” is slightly inconsistent. The notion is that constituents of mine in west Wales will have a relationship manager in Swansea or Bristol—look at a map; it is a long way away. There is a disconnect between them and as a result local businesses suffer and sometimes the advice that is given can be problematic. The requirement is for local managers who understand the business in the area. That is hugely important and can make a huge difference to the small and medium-sized businesses that they are there to serve.
The issue of broadband and mobile coverage is hugely important. My constituency is in the bottom 10 in the UK in terms of broadband speeds and actual coverage. Next Wednesday, I have a debate in Westminster Hall, for those who are interested in that matter in a Welsh context. That is hugely significant for the debate we are having as is the issue of physical access to a bank. I live six miles from the great metropolis of Aberystwyth. I have the luxury of a car; I own one. I have the luxury of a train and a bus.
Mr Williams
I do not own the bus or the train, I hasten to add. I have that luxury, but most of my constituency does not.
Two weeks ago, HSBC notified me—it sent me a letter—rather than consulted me of the fact that the Aberaeron HSBC would be shutting in September. They did not ask my opinion beforehand when they came to see me and the local councillor, Elizabeth Evans, to discuss the branch closure. This is a significant community and a tourist community—not on the scale of Glastonbury, but a significant community on the west Wales coastline. Local businesses need the bank—it is essential—in order to cash their takings. The closure is simply another nail in the coffin for that vibrant community.
In respect of the protocol, this is an instance of putting the cart before the horse. We were told that arrangements would be put in place before the closures happened, but we left that meeting still very unsure about whether the town of Aberaeron would have any cashpoint provision. In case HSBC is listening, if it is still intent on moving the bank to a local store there is a challenge: the pressure is on to provide us with at least a cashpoint machine in the town.
There have been two cashpoints in Aberaeron in the past. The hon. Member for Clwyd South mentioned the railway in her community. People can arrive there anticipating their railway trip for the weekend and find that they have no money and no means of accessing money. That happened in Aberaeron when the two cashpoints dried up. Visitors as well as locals found that they had no access to money in that community, raising the spectre of a long drive elsewhere.
With the continuing loss of bank branches, the importance of post offices has grown substantially, with more post office branches now providing banking facilities. We are told that 99% of the population live within three miles of a post office branch, with over 11,500 branches nationwide. All of those branches handle automated transactions, offering “cash-in and cash-out” banking services. Although the services provided by the Post Office are welcome and the initiator of this great idea should be commended—it is important and is providing more than a stop-gap—by the Post Office’s own admission, post office branches
“cannot offer the high value, complex and regulated financial services previously offered to the bank’s customers.”
Where can a customer receive financial advice or take out a loan in an area that has no local bank branches and a post office branch is the only access to banking? These are things that neither post office branches nor internet banking services can provide in the way that I think is still required—in a personalised and focused manner.
One of the successes of the previous Government was that the post office network was retained after years of decline, with a commitment to keep 11,500 post offices. However, that has not necessarily stopped closure. What has happened is that the word “closure” has been replaced with the idea of “movement to somewhere else”. If high street bank branches close and post offices follow, rural communities will be hardest hit. With relatively limited public transport making it harder to travel far and with rural areas having the weakest broadband speeds, our rural population is being financially left behind. As we have heard, there are age and demographic issues because not all people are capable of accessing the internet even if it is available.
When banks move into post offices and post offices move into shops, we need to recognise that those places were not designed with bank transactions in mind. There is considerable concern about privacy and security, which will be particularly off-putting for local businesses and elderly residents who rely on face-to-face transactions. Another positive move was the access to banking protocol, but I can only concur with the eloquent and passionate remarks of the right hon. Member for Tottenham on that issue. The protocol was good as far as it went, but it did not go far enough. It has not been monitored and I think it has been breached. I look forward to the review when it happens. When the protocol was announced, my former colleague, Vince Cable, said that
“banks have a duty to ensure that all their users and especially vulnerable customers, small businesses and those in rural communities can continue to access over the counter banking services.”
That is extremely important, and we look to the Minister for reassurance that a renewed protocol to address those concerns will be robust and will be enacted.
As well as the Aberaeron branch, we have lost a number of others. The roll call is significant. We have lost banks in Llandysul, New Quay and Tregaron. Tregaron is a particularly notable example, because following the closure of the Barclays branch there, customers face a 22-mile round trip to the nearest branch in Lampeter. It is not good enough for a bank to put a poster in a window, or on a boarded-up window, telling people that their nearest branch is X miles away. That closure has hampered local businesses, and local residents have felt the loss of face-to-face services. New Quay/Cei Newydd, in my constituency, has lost its last branch, although the town has a huge population in the summer because of all the visitors.
I could go on, but I will not do so. Others want to speak, and we want to hear from the Front Benches, including, of course, the Minister. Let me end by saying that rural communities are going through very challenging times. There is a characterisation of the high street in a small market town, involving banks, post offices, shops and readily available public transport—buses that stop and take people to their destinations. I do not want to be a Luddite; I do not condemn the march towards a digital economy, with services that can be accessed online and business that can be conducted by means of a call centre rather than face to face; but there is a universality in that, which does not currently apply to all rural areas. Perhaps it will in the future, given technological advances. Perhaps we will all be content to sit in our homes, not talking to each other and playing on computers. But we are not there yet.
Rural areas are being left behind. Broadband, and broadband speeds, are not equitable across the country. A generation of people, and certain businesses, depend and rely on physical banking. I sincerely hope that, if the way forward is the access to banking protocol review, the realities of rurality—the reality of the 20% of us who live in rural areas—will be considered.
The hon. Member for Wells ended his speech by using the phrase “fair play”. In Welsh the phrase is “Chwarae Teg”, and we demand that too.