Mr Gagan Mohindra

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, which I think will be echoed in later contributions. The criteria feel too stringent. With the Minister’s support, I hope that conversations with Link and others will mean that the criteria are a bit more flexible, so that banking hubs are accessible to all, rather than just fitting an arbitrary parameter. I have already expressed my concerns about the parameters used to determine whether an area qualifies for a banking hub, and I will emphasise in my meeting the importance of ensuring that the proximity of Abbots Langley to Watford should not prevent it from getting a banking hub, for the reasons that I have already outlined. The problem with semi-rural areas such as mine—and Reading, by the sound of it—is that the criteria established by Link for determining the need to set up a new banking hub are likely to miss areas such as Abbots Langley, because they focus on when the last bank branch in a town closed. Abbots Langley is a village that has not had a bank for a very long time. I will raise this with Link in my meeting, especially because villages and smaller communities have been disproportionately affected by bank closures, losing 70% of their banking network since 2015 compared with less than 50% in urban areas.