Gregory Stafford

I thank the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) for securing this debate. In my constituency of Farnham and Bordon, the situation is stark. Although I welcome the fact that we have secured a temporary banking hub in The Shed, in Bordon, on the Hampshire side, it rapidly needs to have a permanent location. In Liphook, there is no banking hub, no agreed plan and no clear process for securing one. Across the border in Surrey, in Haslemere, we are fortunate to have one of the 100 national hubs up and running, but in nearby Farnham, Barclays has just gone and Santander goes next month. All this means that more than 100,000 people across my constituency have not a single bank and only one building society. Constituents are right to be concerned. Link, the UK’s main cash access body, has stated that Santander’s closure will have, “no significant impact on the community”. I strongly disagree; it absolutely will. This cannot continue to be a postcode lottery. Banks were once embedded in towns and communities but now they are being erased with little left behind. Banking hubs are a partial answer, but the system needs reforms. The process is slow, the criteria too narrow and the scope of services too limited. Hubs must be located centrally, open five or six days a week, accessible to those with limited mobility and reachable without a car. They should serve both individuals and small businesses and, crucially, offer face-to-face banking, not just cash points and machines.