Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if she will require banks to (a) publish lending data by postcode and (b) identify the neighbourhoods where the (i) least and (ii) most lending takes place.

The Government has no plans to require banks to publish lending data by postcode or to identify neighbourhoods with the least and most lending. However, as I outlined in my answers to PQs 86597 (5 November) and 77972 (16 October), and as set out in the recently published Financial Inclusion Strategy, the Government is committed to ensuring that access to finance is available for individuals and businesses across the UK and to tackle barriers where these exist. The Strategy presents an ambitious programme of measures to improve access to credit, among them new funding for the credit union sector in England and a small sum lending pilot.