David Reed

I thank my near neighbour, the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden), for bringing this important subject to the House. Like her, I have seen many of these problems in my constituency. We have had a number of problems in Budleigh: every major bank has left the town. Importantly, there are a number of smaller surrounding villages, such as East Budleigh and Colaton Raleigh, meaning that the town supports around 6,500 people, yet we have no access to cash whatsoever. The area is a tourist economy, with people coming down during the summer, but there is no access to cash for tourists. On multiple occasions, people have tried to take out money from the cash machine on the side of Tesco, but the money has simply run out. That is not good enough for a place that relies on tourists. We have seen a similar problem in Exmouth, where our post office is closing and we have one remaining bank. Exmouth is one of the largest towns in Devon, so that is just not acceptable. Looking at the demographics, we are a largely elderly constituency where people have mobility issues, and access to transport is not the same as in London, Manchester or other bigger cities, so this needs to be sorted out rapidly. We have heard strong calls for a banking hub, and we have been trying to work with Link for the past year but have been rejected twice. From what we have seen, Link does not incorporate the geographic and demographic issues that I have just raised. I strongly call on the Minister to reassess the criteria that Link is using to make sure that constituencies like mine are not left out.