Banking in North Ayrshire

Debate between Patricia Gibson and Stephen Gethins

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am delighted to have secured this debate on banking in North Ayrshire, although I really wish it was not necessary. I should apologise in advance for my croaky voice as I struggle through this speech. I have been trying to secure this debate since November, when the closures of RBS branches in Kilwinning, Kilbirnie and Saltcoats were first announced. I have the fortune, or misfortune, to have secured this debate on the very week when I have lost my voice—make of that what you will.

Since November, I have spoken in three debates on bank closures, written several letters to Ross McEwan, the chief executive of RBS, and raised this matter with the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, which has summoned the chief executive of RBS. I have also held street stalls with SNP local councillors, activists and volunteers on countless Saturdays in the affected towns since Christmas, collecting signatures for a parliamentary petition protesting against these closures, which I will be presenting in this place in the coming weeks.

The reason for all this activity is the real anger and betrayal felt by the people of Kilwinning, Saltcoats and Kilbirnie at the loss of these banks in their towns. RBS is a bank that they own via the Government—a bank bailed out from its own mistakes and mismanagenent by their taxes.  Now this same bank is leaving these communities without a backward glance or any sense of social responsibility towards the very communities on whose taxes the bank’s very continued existence relied.

Although many communities in Scotland will be left without a bank following the latest announcement of closures, in my own constituency what has happened brings the total number of towns with no bank to a staggering six.  The towns of Dalry, Stevenston, West Kilbride, Ardrossan and Beith no longer have a bank; should the latest round of closures go ahead, we can add Kilwinning to that list. Kilwinning will be a town of over 16,000 people with no banking facilities—it would be funny if it were not so appalling and ridiculous. I honestly do not think any other constituency in the UK has been so adversely, cruelly hit. Indeed, the banks are stampeding out of Ayrshire at an alarming—a staggering—rate.

[Stephen Gethins (North East Fife) (SNP)]

I salute my hon. Friend’s courage in getting through the debate. Does she agree that rural areas are particularly badly hit by bank closures? I am thinking of those in North East Fife, where RBS closed all but one, leaving a huge commute for those who need banking services the most.

[Patricia Gibson]

I do. I will come later to the fact that no cognisance has been shown of the consequences for communities that the banks are supposed to serve.