Meeting of the Parliament 24 March 2026 [Draft]
I congratulate my colleague Clare Haughey on bringing this important and timely debate to the chamber and on all the work that she is doing to save the Bank of Scotland branch in Rutherglen.
I, too, pay tribute to Richard Lochhead, the minister who will respond to the debate and a colleague I have known and respected for decades. This will be Richard’s final speech after 27 years here, having spent 19 years in the Government, including nine in the Cabinet. Richard was very ill with sepsis just a couple of years ago. I wish that diligent and unassuming public servant all the best in whatever he does next.
When I last spoke here about bank branch closures, on 30 October, I remarked that high street branches were disappearing “at an alarming rate”. Unfortunately, there is no sign that that trend is being reversed. As Clare Haughey mentioned, Lloyds has announced that another 11 branches will close this summer, and I am sure that, every time such announcements are made, colleagues across the chamber anxiously check to see whether their constituency will lose yet another valued branch that local people and businesses rely on.
It is fitting, from my perspective, that we are debating the issue today, because the final bank branch in Largs was set to disappear from the town’s main street tomorrow. In December, it was given a stay of execution until 29 July, to allow time for a new cash hub to be set up in the town. Although that is welcome, it does not change the fact that Largs—a town with more than 11,000 inhabitants, including many elderly residents—will soon be without a bank branch. That will also impact customers from the neighbouring communities of Millport, Fairlie, Skelmorlie and West Kilbride. The decision leaves my constituency with only one remaining mainland bank branch, the Bank of Scotland in Saltcoats, which shows the decline in the number of bank branches across Scotland’s towns in recent years.
Cash hubs are undoubtedly welcome, and I have been assured by Link that the services available will be the same as those at a Post Office, including the ability to deposit and withdraw cash and to pay utility bills. However, that is no substitute for the high-quality, face-to-face advice provided by bank employees, who can offer complex mortgage discussions and give investment, financial and business advice.
Banks argue that the industry has changed and point to their online services, but many people feel safer and more confident with in-person banking, not least due to understandable fears about online scams and fraud. Customer behaviour has changed in recent years, prompted by the banks themselves, which is why banking hubs that offer easy access to cash and basic banking services are often seen as a solution. Those hubs also provide a private space where customers can talk face to face with staff about more complicated banking inquiries. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a banking hub in my constituency, despite, for years, having made the case to Link for establishing such a hub. When I met Link’s chief corporate affairs officer here, at Holyrood, he explained how Link defines an area by mapping the high street to understand who is likely to rely on a hub for cash services and which businesses would be affected by any gap in those services. The remit is limited to whether access to cash is guaranteed and does not consider wider banking services.
The UK Tory Government’s Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 gave the Financial Conduct Authority responsibility for maintaining access to cash deposit and withdrawal but, crucially, not access to banking services. At the time, Labour argued that that was wrong and that access to banking services, and not only to cash, should be available; yet, in 20 months of a Labour Government, there has been very little to suggest that that omission will be rectified—surprise, surprise. When asked about that in the House of Commons last month, Lucy Rigby MP, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, vaguely promised to
“keep these issues under review”.—[Official Report, House of Commons, 24 February 2026; Vol 781, c 111WH.]
It is clear that banking decisions taken at Westminster are inadequate for Scotland’s needs and especially, but not exclusively, for the needs of rural communities, which have endured bank branch closures at an alarming rate. The FCA will undertake a post-implementation review of the access-to-cash regime later this year. I ask the next Scottish Government to urge its UK counterpart to change Link’s inflexible rules, which prevent Largs and other towns from having a banking hub, and to extend the FCA’s powers to access to wider banking services.