Lucy Rigby

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) for securing this important debate and for giving me the opportunity to discuss a topic that is integral to the ability of his constituents, my constituents and all our constituents to participate not just in our economy, but in society as a whole. I also thank other hon. Members who have contributed to the debate. From the number of interventions that have been made, it is clear that this is a very important issue to all of us throughout the House. I think we can agree on the importance of ensuring that everyone across the UK has access to appropriate and affordable financial products and services. I really do appreciate the strength of feeling on the issue. I know that some Members present will have had the opportunity at recent party conferences, as I did, to engage with the likes of Fair4All Finance, the Centre for Social Justice, Rooted Finance and other organisations. I pay tribute to TAG, the charitable organisation in my hon. Friend’s constituency that he mentioned, for the incredible work that it is doing to promote social inclusion for disabled people. I recognise the importance of that work and the need to go further to ensure that our financial system works for everyone; I will return to that point. As my hon. Friend has set out, some of the statistics on financial inclusion in the UK are sobering: 900,000 people still do not have access to a bank account, 10% of adults have no savings, and another 21% of adults have less than £1,000 to draw on in the event of an emergency. When it comes to digital inclusion, which he raised, 3.3 million people—7% of current account holders—do not bank online or use a mobile banking app. However, I believe that this Government are on the cusp of making a real difference in that regard via the publication of our national financial inclusion strategy. Through that strategy, we can open up access to the right financial services, build households’ financial resilience and transform our constituents’ financial wellbeing. However, I must stress that although the Treasury will publish the financial inclusion strategy, Government alone cannot solve some of the issues that we have been discussing today. We need a joint effort across industry, regulators and the third sector. That is exactly why I, along with my immediate predecessor—my right hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Emma Reynolds)—and my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Tulip Siddiq), have developed our financial inclusion strategy, with the support of a committee made up of consumer and industry representatives. The committee has been considering a range of barriers faced by those who are financially excluded, as well as three important, cross-cutting themes—economic abuse, mental health and accessibility. The latter theme is particularly relevant to the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North has raised. He will appreciate that I am slightly limited in what I can say before the publication of the strategy, but I can confirm that the fact that accessibility is a cross-cutting theme has been important to the development of the strategy. It has prompted the committee to look closely at the role that inclusive design can play in improving accessibility for underserved groups. I also want to make it very clear that we will publish the strategy before the end of the year.