Community Bank Closures

Susan Elan Jones Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous), my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (James Frith) and all other contributors to the debate, but of course I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Ruth Smeeth). I was intrigued by her description of her first experience of banking and I remembered my wonderful chequebook with a nice colourful kingfisher on it. I thank the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg), too, who secured this debate along with my hon. Friend.

I have to say that I am completely fed up, as are my constituents and many businesses in my constituency. We are fed up because we are a constituency of 240 square miles and we have a grand total of one bank branch left. I do not know what happened to all the rhetoric of the last bank in the community. Whatever happened, it did not work in areas such as mine and it is not working across swathes of the country.

I welcomed the banking protocol. In fact, I was part of a cross-party group of Members that went to see Professor Griggs about the protocol. I welcomed it and many of the suggestions in it. For example, I welcomed the fact that it highlighted the need for the collection of cash from businesses and the like and the co-ordination of that. I welcomed many of the things in that voluntary code, but it strikes me that not enough has been done subsequently. It certainly has not halted branch closures.

In 2016, when the last two branches were to close, at Chirk and Ruabon, a staff member and I took it upon ourselves to visit 126 businesses on the high streets of Chirk, Ruabon, Rhosllanerchrugog, Johnstown, Cefn Mawr, Plas Madoc and Acrefair—apologies to any constituents I have missed out—to ask about the many issues they face. Earlier in the debate reference was made to post offices. Having worked with local businesses and post offices in my constituency, I welcome any improvements where they have been made. I also welcome the work that the Treasury has done on standardisation, because we are no longer in the daft position where some things work for some banks, and other things work for other banks. There are post office branches where that works absolutely magnificently, but in others it simply does not work. If someone comes into a post office to buy a packet of crisps, and then someone else buys a bar of chocolate, but the person working there has to deal with a banking transaction in the middle of that, that is not a sustainable solution.

If we are looking to develop post offices in that way, that might be one exciting option to consider around the country. I know for a fact that post offices are doing all sorts of things, for example, granting credit union members access to their cash. I welcome that when it works, but we have to look at what provision is put in place when bank branches close.

Earlier in the debate it was suggested that the notification period for bank branch closures should be longer. I think that there is a case for that, but in too many cases we know that, when a bank gives notice that it is going to close a branch, that is what it is going to do. We can petition to our hearts’ content, with 38 Degrees petitions, petitions in this House, Change.org petitions—we could even create our own website and have some more petitions—but in most cases it does not make one jot of difference.

[Michelle Donelan]

Does the hon. Lady agree that more time would allow people to hone their digital skills and that banks have a role to play in that to ensure that people are prepared for the closure? The branches might still close, but a longer notice period would give people time to prepare.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Yes, I would welcome that. I think that is a positive point.

We also have to consider what the banks have been telling us. My right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) spoke about some commercially sensitive information that she was not allowed to have. I, too, have asked for commercially sensitive information, such as how many people had accounts at the branch, and clearly the bank was unable to tell me. Better still, I asked how many people on a typical week went in with queries. I was told something earth-shattering: that queries might not really be queries. I asked what that meant. I was told that, if someone goes into a bank, stands at the counter and asks a question, that might not be a query. I made the point that, for the customer asking the question, it very much was a query. I was told that, if there was no formal transaction, it was not a query. It is a parallel universe.

As we move at this juncture, we need to know what on earth the banks are planning to do next. An hon. Member has made the point that first we were fobbed off by being told that one could go to the next village, and then to the next, and then to the next, and that it was all right because it is just a little walk down the road—rather like an old-fashioned countryside treasure hunt. Suddenly, one realises that one has to go quite a long way to get to the next post. That cannot be the way to deal with the problem.

What we do about cashpoints and ATMs is of utmost seriousness. There are currently some 70,000 in the country, the bulk of which are free to use. At the start of 2016, the then Chair of the Treasury Committee, Andrew Tyrie, said that cashpoint charging and closures were of great concern. His point was that, if the ATM companies were not going to deal with the problem, this House needed to look at it, because people in rural communities and those on low incomes would be affected the most. As far as I can see, one problem with cashpoints is that the 38 or so banks and the like that are part of the ATM network are having a little scrap with each other. As they knock metaphorical spots off each other, each deciding that they are all paying too much, it is the customer who loses out.

[Ruth Smeeth]

My hon. Friend may not be aware that the price of an average transaction has not increased for nine years. The service is not costing the banks any more money; they just do not want to pay for it any more.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Where charges exist, the average cost of a single transaction is £1.70, and it is worrying that we are not looking more at free access to cash, which is a basic right. We do not say that about drinking water or many other things. It is nonsense that we are prepared to let banks charge money for us to visit a cashpoint, and there is no doubt that charging hits the poorest communities hardest.

I want to give credit to some examples in my constituency of where people are fighting against the system. I do not know whether Members have ever visited Corwen, which is a fantastic town.

[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

indicated assent.

[Susan Elan Jones]

Excellent. I do not know whether Members have been on the steam train, but Corwen is a wonderful place for tourism and has fantastic local businesses. The town really wants to consider and develop community banking, and people are adapting. We are not expecting to return to a previous era—we do not expect Captain Mainwaring and Sergeant Wilson to come back—but we need a type of banking that works for us and for communities such as Corwen and many others across the country. The Government need to step in if the banks are going to close branches or if the ATM companies are going to start charging. We need the Treasury to be tough on them and we need to stand up to them. At the end of the day, if the world’s local bank and other local banks mean anything by community banking, they have to mean it nationwide.