My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part, particularly those who have offered their support. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering; I fully understand that she may not be able to join me in the Lobby if I call a vote. I appreciate the support offered by the Green Party through the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, as well as the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey.
The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made a really important point about the distances that have to be travelled, and the need to go to Exeter. My husband’s family are from Ottery St Mary, and I know the area well. When she said there were no banks there and she had to go to Exeter, I was quite horrified. That is an extremely potent example of the problem.
I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, of course, for putting her name to the amendment and for offering her support. I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with the Minister’s response. She said that banking is changing and people are now using “convenient” digital services, but the problem is that they are not convenient for everybody. That is the point I was trying to make when I introduced my amendment.
Also, the Post Office network is not always set up in the places and communities where it is needed. We have lost too many post offices and as was mentioned, they are often now not in separate buildings on the high street but at the back of or in the main part of shops. On going to the post office, I have ended up queuing for quite some time because of other people in the shop purchasing things, so it is not necessarily convenient, particularly if you have a lot of money on you. The problem of businesses having to travel large distances with a huge amount of cash has come up. I had not mentioned that issue but of course, it is very important.
The Minister talked about connectivity, but improving connectivity in rural areas has been talked about for years. There are parts of rural areas that are very difficult to connect, and they always seem to get left behind unless the local community agrees to pay what are often very large sums of money. So again, I am not convinced that that will solve the problem. The Minister also talked about having to follow the market. I strongly believe that financial services should be driven not by the market but by the fact that they are important to all our communities, whether we are talking about personal services or business services.
The key point I would like to make concerns the banking hubs. I do not know when we are going to see them. I have never seen one and I do not know what the rollout will be, but they do not seem to be replacing what has been lost.
Having said all that, I am not satisfied by the Minister’s response so I would like to test the opinion of the House.