Community Bank Closures — House of Commons, 2018-02-08
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Susan Elan Jones (Labour, Centre-left): 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.