Santander Closures and Local Communities

Debate between Philippa Whitford and Neil Parish

Thursday 14th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Gentleman is attempting to entice me down a route that I do not quite want to go down, but I agree with him in many respects. Post offices provide a great service, and if we are to lose them as well, that is a real problem. However, at this moment in time I am in full flow about the banks, so I ask the hon. Gentleman not to put me off that particular subject.

[Dr Whitford]

I want to pick up on the comment that the hon. Gentleman made about people going to another town. If someone goes to another town on a Saturday morning to get their money, that is where they are going to shop. That is exactly the impact that bank closures have on our small towns and independent shop owners.

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. There no longer seems to be any strategy among individual banks that would allow them to work out that closures affect not only their business, but many others. The more branches they close down, the more they will lose business, and other people will also lose business.

I am privileged to have quite an elderly population in my constituency, and that population is getting older all the time. Many country towns and rural towns in Devon are in the same interesting position, because people are getting older, and older people do not necessarily trust online banking. They like to be able to bank physically: going back to my previous comment, they like to see a person occasionally, not a machine. I am making light of these issues, but they are not really light, because so many of the older generation think that they can never see anybody or get an answer, and that everything is put in their way to stop them getting anything. We are working hard to get broadband and internet connection in rural areas—in particular, in the Blackdown hills in my area, around Axminster—but it is quite difficult. We will get there, but it is taking time.

I would like to see a strategy, not only from Santander but from all of the banks. Can we have a hub? Can we have something that actually works? Can we have a facility to which people can go? Banks might be prepared to let post offices do a certain number of transactions, but they do not like other banks doing them, yet they close their branches down. If they want to keep their competitiveness and—for want of a better way of putting it—their intellectual property rights, they should not close their branches and make it more difficult for the population to transact with them.

As I have said, I support this afternoon’s debate. It is quite difficult for the Minister, because he cannot say to banks, “You must put a branch there and keep it there.” However, what we must do as a Government, and what I ask the Minister to do, is ask the banks generally, “Do you have a policy that means that you look after people, get people into your branches, and create a business model that works and encourages people to bank at Santander, or any other bank that happens to be in a town?” I do not see anything at the moment that is proactive: everything is rather negative, and that is a great shame. It is our older population, in particular, that will suffer.

Businesses also suffer. I probably had too good a relationship with my local bank manager, because he probably lent me too much money, but a person should be able to actually see somebody and get a decision. If someone goes to a bank now, they will not see a manager: the decision will be passed up the line, and they may or may not get an answer. All of this is holding business back, not driving it forward. This is not just about customers, although it is very much about elderly customers: it is about business, and keeping the economy thriving. Those bank closures, and generally making it difficult to get answers about borrowing and other things that keep the economy stimulated, are real problems.

After that, Mr Davies, I feel much better. Thank you very much.

Improving Air Quality

Debate between Philippa Whitford and Neil Parish

Thursday 28th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

The hon. Lady, who chairs the Transport Committee, is absolutely right that the money would be well spent. Our health would be improved, and therefore we would save money on the NHS and we would be able to spend the money in other ways.

Why are there private individuals in this country who are prepared to bring a case against VW, yet we, as a Government, have singly failed? I would be interested if the Minister could give us some insight into why we allow private people, quite rightly, to bring a case, yet the Government are not supporting them and are not bringing a case themselves.

There is not a satisfactory system for overseeing how money is spent to improve our air quality. Our report finds that Departments are clearly failing to work together. The Government have promised some modest improvements, and I am sure the House looks forward to an update on that in the very near future, perhaps even today.

The Government response tells us that a consistent approach was taken to appraising the cost of air pollution, yet during our joint Committee hearings I was deeply concerned to learn that the then Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones), was not even aware of how much economic impact air pollution has on the UK.

It is clear that the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Treasury, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Transport, the Department of Health and Social Care and local authorities not only need to collaborate more effectively but need to collaborate, full stop.

[Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP)]

Does that not bring us to probably the single most important point we will touch on this afternoon, which is the need for health and wellbeing to be included in all policies and the need for us to get out of all the different silos?

[Neil Parish]

I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. Not only on air quality but in food policy and agriculture policy, health needs to be considered; it needs to be considered in all these things. This can be a beacon for the way forward, but we need much more co-operation between all parts of Government and local government. We would all agree that we have to be careful that the Government do not blame local government and that local government does not blame the Government.

The Government have told us that the Green Book guidance sets out what Departments should be doing and how they should be working together, but that has clearly not worked in the past, and we have received nothing to give us confidence that it will necessarily improve. Perhaps the Minister will be able to put me right.

The clean air strategy failed to include measures to improve road transport emissions. Emissions are being dealt with in a separate strategy, which demonstrates that the Government still operate in silos. I had hoped the Government would take more substantive measures to improve cross-departmental working.