Finance (No. 2) Bill

Paul Monaghan Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 18th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I look forward to reading the characteristically accurate transcript Hansard will have for us tomorrow. The great thing about Hansard is that it allows us to correct our grammar—indeed, it often corrects it for us—but it does not allow us to correct the sense, so we will see what was said precisely.

That is the choice. If the hon. Gentleman now wishes to move away from that choice I think that is telling: with an election approaching Labour Members are nervous about it, but the Labour party—the socialists—remains the party of high taxation. The Conservative Government have had to increase taxation because of the enormous deficit left by the spendthrifts of the last Labour Government who almost bankrupted the country. We would probably have gone to the International Monetary Fund at the time if it had had any money left, but it was bailing out Greece and everywhere else so it did not have much for us by the time the Conservatives came in. Through hard work, control of expenditure and, I am sorry to say, some tax rises, the deficit has been brought under control. That is the fundamental achievement of this Government.

As we go into an election, it is the really big picture that matters. It will give such a clear and forthright choice to the British people. Do they want to continue to be governed by people who recognise that it is their money—the money of the individual taxpayer—of which the Government must take as little as possible to finance that which they are required to do? Or are we going to go back to the days of socialist tax and spend, with a huge increase in the deficit to finance spending programmes and tax increases that are even higher than those in the days of Harold Wilson? It was, of course, Denis Healey who said that he would squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked. That was his approach to taxation. Do we, by dutiful, sensible and prudent management of the economy, get things back under control where, with proper reforms, we can lower the tax burden?

[Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)]

In that context, how does the hon. Gentleman explain a national debt of close to £2 trillion?

House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Paul Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

When legislating on this, the previous Government absolutely recognised that point, and there is special provision in the current boundary proposals published tomorrow to protect Orkney and Shetland and the Western Isles, even though those constituencies are particularly small in voter numbers, given the wide area that they cover. Those remain unchanged. But let us look at the numbers for Scotland. Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross has an electorate of 45,898. In comparison, Linlithgow and East Falkirk has an electorate of 83,593. That is a difference of 37,695. There are almost twice as many electors. I cannot believe the SNP is defending having one elector whose vote is worth twice that of another; that is an historical injustice that this Government are determined to correct.

[Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)]

I am the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. Why not reduce the size of seats to an electorate of 45,000 across the UK, instead of increasing them to 75,000?

[Chris Skidmore]

It is up to the independent commission to draw up the figures, but this Government are determined to ensure that we will be the Government to introduce the proposals first advanced in the clarion calls of the Chartists 200 years ago to have equal-sized constituencies and equal votes across the United Kingdom.

Question put.

Post Office Closures

Paul Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mrs Gillan, for the opportunity to discuss the important issue of service delivery in the event of post office closures. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) on securing the debate and on highlighting his case study, the features of which I recognise only too well.

Post offices play an enormously important role in the lives of communities across the UK, and nowhere is that more evident than in constituencies such as mine that have many remote and rural communities. Indeed, the post office is the heart and soul of many villages in my constituency, and for many people it is the only means to interact with the outside world. They do so not only through postal services and parcels but through banking and accessing business services, submitting identity documents, obtaining a passport or driving licence, accessing cash, building up a modest savings account, receiving pensions and collecting benefit entitlements. I appreciate the challenges that the Post Office faces in delivering that range of crucial range of services, and I appreciate that it is working hard to ensure that its services remain as accessible as possible, particularly for older and disabled customers.

Between March 2001 and March 2015, 531 of Scotland’s post offices were closed. That is equivalent to over 27% of all post offices being lost—more than one in four. Each of those closures is a disaster for the local community, depriving it of the means to interact with the world in the ways that I described. On 8 November 2015, just a few weeks ago, The Mail on Sunday published an article stating that there had been a large number of temporary post office closures in rural villages and towns of Scotland. Figures obtained by the paper showed that 90 post offices in Scotland are now officially registered as temporarily closed. I say “temporarily”, although a third have been closed for more than five years. Commenting on that sad fact recently, the consumer spokesman for Citizens Advice Scotland noted:

“Local Post Offices are vital for remote and rural communities as consumers and business there can face difficulty in travelling to alternative branches.”

The paper noted that new figures provided by the Post Office under the Freedom of Information Act demonstrated that as of 31 March 2015 there were 1,492 post offices in Scotland, of which 1,402 remained open. Of the 90 classed as temporarily closed, 77 were in rural areas. Several of those are in my constituency. Of the temporarily closed post offices, 34 have been closed for five or six years, six for four years, two for three years, seven for two years and 14 for one year. Within the past year alone, 27 post offices have closed temporarily throughout Scotland.

The effect of post office closures is dramatic, not least because many of the post offices have evolved to take on responsibility for delivering a range of banking and business functions, in addition to the traditional post office role. That evolution has taken place because many of the banks operating in the UK have implemented a programme of branch closures and reduced opening hours in many communities. In the rural areas of my constituency that often means that the local post office is the only available financial service provider within a 60-mile radius. It goes without saying that where the banks have closed and the post office follows, communities are left in grave circumstances. Such a situation is far too common, as we have heard.

To be clear, accountability for the post office network lies with the UK Government, who have a responsibility to ensure that post office services are available for Scotland’s rural communities. In those communities there is no alternative to post office services.

The Postal Services Act 2011 sets out the minimum requirements of the universal service obligation, on which the Post Office must deliver. The requirements are statutory and may be altered only with the consent of the UK Parliament. The minimum requirements are: at least one delivery of letters every Monday to Saturday to every address in the UK; at least one collection of letters every Monday to Saturday; postal services at an affordable, uniform tariff across the UK; a registered items service at an affordable public tariff; an insured items service at an affordable public tariff; a free-of-charge postal service to blind or partially sighted people; and free carriage of legislative petitions and addresses.

The Post Office, posts and postal services are reserved to the UK Government under the Scotland Act 1998, but the Scottish Government are committed to strengthening the long-term sustainability of the post office network in Scotland, consistent with the national performance framework. Recognising the importance of post offices, the Scottish Government have determined to provide funding to local post offices to maintain their crucial service delivery through, for example, the post office diversification fund for Scotland. The objective of the fund is to contribute to the regeneration of deprived urban areas by sustaining and improving post office branches on the margins of viability that provide socially important services and facilities and that act as an anchor for other retail activity. Such objectives clearly apply to rural areas as well. In 2011-12, for example, 48 post offices throughout Scotland received funding of upwards of £25,000, individually awarded to various outlets for a variety of improvements, including refurbishments, improved security, retail equipment and so on.

The Scottish Government recognise the valuable social role of post offices, particularly in deprived and remote areas of Scotland. That is why the Scottish National party continues to promote innovative approaches to delivering public services through post offices. We want to support local authorities, local enterprise networks and third sector organisations to work together to find sustainable solutions that place post office services at the heart of community-based services.

The UK Government must do all in their power to protect rural communities from the destructive impact of post office closures. Post offices perform a vital service in many areas of the UK. They have a pivotal role to play and are often the only place where letters and packages can be sent and received, bills paid, cash withdrawn and savings deposited. For communities that as often as not do not have internet connections, such services are essential in every meaning of the word.

Scotland has many remote and rural households and communities, and in common with communities in other countries in the UK, they should not have vital services taken away from them. I call on the UK Government to improve strategy and policy and to secure post offices for communities throughout the UK, but particularly in remote and rural areas.

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (in the Chair)]

I would like to start the wind-ups at 10 minutes past 5, with five minutes for each of the Opposition Front Benchers and, I hope, 10 minutes for the Minister. That is what I am aiming for, so I hope Members will accommodate it.

Royal Bank of Scotland

Paul Monaghan Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on securing the debate and pay tribute to the ordinary people across the UK who work for the Royal Bank of Scotland and who have delivered a fantastic service in banks for many years. They are part of the community and very often their diligence and hard work is not recognised or rewarded.

The difficulty that I identify is with the Royal Bank of Scotland’s business model, encouraged by the UK Government, that has seen access and standards of customer service plummet in the past three or four years in particular. I shall set that in context and highlight three examples of branch closures in my constituency of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross.

RBS recently closed a branch in Invergordon, a town in Ross-shire with heavy industry and a growing tourism sector. The loss of the bank is creating cash shortages, and business turnovers are starting to fall. The impact is obvious. The bank’s customers have to travel to other towns, where they conduct their shopping, pay their bills and undertake other aspects of their business. This is enormously challenging to the local economy in Invergordon.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has also closed a branch in Lochinver, a remote area of north-west Sutherland. It services a vast geographical area and is very busy with tourism. Customers there now have to undertake a 110-mile round trip to access their nearest bank. Businesses, too, have to travel that 110 miles to bank cash. The RBS branch in Lybster, too, has closed. It was arguably the centre of the town and a focal point for the community. Customers there have to travel over 40 miles to access the nearest bank, which is in Wick. Again, while they are there they conduct their shopping and other aspects of business, which has a negative impact on the local economy in Lybster.

Each of these communities feels aggrieved because of the way these branches were closed, with little meaningful consultation. Their economies are now marooned. Banks are crucial to our local economies. The structure of banking in the UK is failing our communities, especially those in rural areas. Empirical evidence exists to demonstrate that the business model currently implemented by the Royal Bank of Scotland and other banks, including the Bank of Scotland, is hurting small businesses and threatening the viability of high streets. Thousands of people in my constituency feel bitterly disappointed and let down by RBS and by the UK Government’s approach to the banking crisis more generally.

Correspondence that I have had with the Treasury and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills evidences little interest on the part of the UK Government in challenging the business model of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and branch closures in particular, and the Treasury has declined to use its influence as the major shareholder to establish a more positive outcome. RBS claims that it has shifted from a global bank to a UK-focused bank with a strategy of building a stronger bank. My constituents see neither a UK focus nor a stronger bank. In fact, many now have no bank at all and feel distinctly disadvantaged.

The UK is virtually unique in Europe in not having a local or stakeholder banking sector. The UK is distinctive in having created a banking sector where people in my constituency and elsewhere are left dependant on large, commercial banks, with nothing left to plug the gap when these banks retreat. This is remarkably poor fiscal planning. The UK Government’s stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland provides an opportunity to address the structural problems observable in the UK banking sector and to guarantee communities access to banking services in the future. The New Economics Foundation, Civitas, ResPublica and Friends of the Earth, along with many other organisations, have all published proposals to use the UK Government’s stake in RBS to create a network of local banks. It is increasingly clear that UK taxpayers will never recover their investment through the re-privatisation of RBS. In fact, the likely loss to be realised is estimated to be around £13 billion, which is almost one third of the original taxpayer bail-out.

The UK Government must, as any sensible Government would, look for alternative options. They could develop a local banking model based on Germany’s Sparkassen—we have heard about them already; that could create 130 new local banks in England. Powers could be devolved to Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to allow those nations to restructure their banking sectors. The UK Government could transform Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest into models of best practice. Based on the performance of internationally comparable local banking networks, a programme of localisation could have boosted the economy by £7.1 billion in 2008 and delivered additional benefits of more than £30 billion over three years.

It is not too late. I urge the Minister to be brave, innovative and ambitious and to order a full review of options for Royal Bank of Scotland before selling off any more shares at knock-down prices. The current programme of branch closures is helping nobody and looks very likely to become worse. I urge her to consider how local economies could be enhanced through the development of stakeholder banks, and how communities could be assisted to grow, prosper and develop. I also urge her to think about how the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly could lead a revitalised banking service that is responsive to community needs, not corporate interests.

I have deep reservations about the timing and speed with which the UK Government are planning to sell their remaining stake in Royal Bank of Scotland. The reduction of the Treasury’s shareholding in the bank, without structural reform, will ultimately lead to a return to “business as usual” and a missed opportunity to learn the lessons of the crisis and ensure more customer and taxpayer protection. Structural reforms should be demanded as a condition of the sale. Should the sale proceed, it is vital that the taxpayer should receive the full £45.8 billion paid by the previous Government in 2008. The public must get every single penny back. I support the motion.