Joe Morris

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Wishart. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing such a vital debate. We are obviously talking about a largely defensive issue—defending cash access for our communities and defending the banking services that our communities need—but we need a much more broad-ranging debate about what the Government could do proactively to bring banking services to more rural communities. Opening a banking hub months after a community has lost a bank branch will give access to only some of the services that have been lost. Access to cash is great if that is a person’s only need, but a banking hub can never provide the kind of support that people might need, no matter where they live. I am thinking about things such as delegated power of attorney or some of the additional support that young entrepreneurs need to bring jobs and investment into rural areas, for which towns such as Haltwhistle in my constituency are crying out. The town has not received nearly enough support from the “Keystone cops” at Northumberland county council. Given the time available, I particularly want to focus on Haltwhistle. We have been trying to get better banking services in the town since I was elected—it was the subject of one of the first speeches I gave as an MP—but it consistently fails to meet the guidelines for a banking hub. There is some access to cash through ATMs at supermarkets or through the post offices’ services with partner banks, but those are not enough. The ATMs are often out of order and the post offices do not meet the needs of the local business community. I am particularly concerned about the damage that the lack of cash access does to the business community. It does not just discourage entrepreneurs from setting up in the area; it also forces people to use online giants in a town where 30% of the population is over 65. It is also a dispersed community, with the service serving not just the town of Haltwhistle, but Featherstone, Melkridge, Plenmeller, Gilsland and Greenhead. I would like to invite the Minister to meet some of the Haltwhistle businesses that have real concerns about the ongoing lack of access to cash, and to discuss how we can better support businesses in rural areas through better banking provision.