Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of the proportion of high street bank branches that have closed in the last five years.

The Treasury does not make assessments of the bank branch network. The decision to close a branch is a commercial issue for the management team of the bank. However, Government believes it is important the impact on communities must be understood, considered and mitigated where possible. That is why the Government continues to be very supportive of the Access to Banking Standard and the commitment it places on banks to minimise the impact of branch closures, including by ensuring that customers are aware of the alternative ways they can continue to access banking services. These include the Post Office, which allows 95% of business and 99% of personal banking customers to carry out their everyday banking at 11,500 Post Office branches across the UK.

The Financial Conduct Authority undertook an analysis of branch closures as part of their Strategic Review of Retail Banking Business Models. This analysis can be found in Annex 1 of the final report.