Meeting of the Parliament 04 March 2026 [Draft]
I thank Jackie Dunbar for lodging the motion and for the debate that has ensued. I enjoyed much of her speech—if she does not obtain ministry in the Parliament, there is perhaps a calling to a different type of ministry in her future, given her opening Biblical verse.
We are debating a very important issue, as has been articulated by colleagues across the chamber. I declare an interest as a trustee of a charity in Neilston—the Neilston War Memorial Association—that uses banking services, for which it is now being charged by the Bank of Scotland. I recognise that that is a significant challenge for an organisation that was set up principally to be the custodian of the local war memorial and to provide remembrance events, and therefore does not carry a huge amount of money in its bank account, as it is now losing money through the bank charges that are being applied.
That is set against a backdrop in which other charities in the community are facing the same problem, and in which the Bank of Scotland has withdrawn its branch in Barrhead—the last bank in the town. That issue has been raised in the chamber on numerous occasions, in concert with colleagues across the country, who are seeing the diminishing of banking services. It is therefore becoming more difficult to operate as a charity.
Having slightly teased Jackie Dunbar about her speech, I will say that later in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says:
“render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
People read that in different ways, but what it says to me is that we should let people get on with doing what is God’s work, or what is the common good—that is, the work that charities do—and leave the other bits to the state. That relates to much of what we have covered this evening. At the end of the day, charities do not want to be caught up in having to do overburdensome administration or to be charged simply for doing what is right and good. Charities are playing by the rules. They are doing everything right. They adhere to the rules and regulations of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator. For all the reasons that we have heard outlined by colleagues, what they do not need is banks trying to make a profit off the back of their good endeavours.
If we expand on that biblical verse about rendering things to the right place, we can say—rightly, as we have heard articulated in the debate—that taxpayers have rendered to Caesar the money that was paid in to support the banks during the financial crash. Colleagues on this side of the chamber who know Gordon Brown and people like him know that, when he envisaged the plan to rescue the economy back in 2008, the end point was probably not seen as a position in which banks were able to make profits off the backs of charities, many of which he now supports and is involved in across Fife and elsewhere in the country.
As we have heard, there are clearly banks that are doing the wrong thing, and, as my colleague Claire Baker pointed out, there are banks that are doing the right thing. The Co-operative Bank is based on the values of the co-operative movement, which goes back hundreds of years and has a very proud heritage and history involving organisations such as the Fenwick Weavers Society that were set up by people coming together to create mutual concerns and to own their endeavours together. That sort of banking needs to be prioritised and supported.
Although we might call for legislation and intervention in order to regulate the banks—a call that I think has merit—we also need to look at how we support better ways of doing banking, whether that involves the credit union movement, mutuals or whatever. Those approaches are important, and expanding those opportunities to local charities and community groups could be a game changer for them in terms of where they can deposit cash and have their assets protected, so that they can continue to do the work that is greatly valued in all our communities across Scotland.
There is a degree of consensus across Parliament this evening, which is always good to hear. I am sure that we will return to this issue in order to try to get the right solution.