Meeting of the Parliament 24 March 2026 [Draft]
I must thank Clare Haughey for bringing this debate to Parliament, as bank closures have also been a big issue in part of my constituency. I will also mention Councillor Ricky Nelson, who has worked closely with me on the issue.
In January, the Bank of Scotland branch in Larkhall closed. As that is in a rural part of my constituency, the branch provided banking services not only to Larkhall but to all the surrounding villages and farms, covering a population of roughly 25,000 people.
For many months prior to that, I had meetings with the representatives of Lloyds Banking Group to urge them not to follow through with closing the branch, which I deemed to be a vital service to the community. However, my pleas fell on deaf ears. They were committed to the closure, apparently in the interests of shareholders, while putting the interests of vulnerable customers at the bottom of the pile. That was regardless of the fact that, when they had made a sow’s ear of their banking finances, we the taxpayers bailed them out to the tune of millions—sorry, I mean thousands of millions—of pounds. In hindsight, it is jail that we should have given those so-called big bankers.
I have since spoken with businesses in Larkhall that report the problems that they have had—wasted time travelling to Hamilton to get to a bank and then find parking, make deposits, collect change and access credit. However, it is only in the longer term that we will see the full extent of the economic impact to Larkhall’s high street, which has always punched well above its weight—similar to Rutherglen, to be fair—as an independent hub for retailers. When I pointed out to Lloyds Banking Group officials that banking is not the same as selling luxury cars or package holidays because, for quite some time, it has been impossible to live life without access to banking services, they simply glossed over the issues that I raised. The Bank of Scotland is immune to the notion of responsibility. We should not assume that it is interested in the customers that it provides services to—only profit and bankers’ bonuses get its attention.
I urge members to visit a Bank of Scotland branch—in fact, any bank—early in the morning. I promise them that the customers they will see are those who are vulnerable in our society. They may be older or have a disability. They might want to send money abroad or they might be desperate to seek a line of credit or forgiveness for being overdrawn, while they are being punished by penalties that they cannot afford to pay. I have no doubt that vulnerable groups of people are not profitable customers for the banks, but supporting vulnerable customers is part of the social contract that banks have entered into and have had for hundreds of years.
That aside, the bank has many customers with broad shoulders. In one way or another, one of those customers is the Scottish Government, which I hope will consider its future relationship with the Lloyds Banking Group. More than that, I hope that the Scottish and UK Governments will be prepared to work together to come down on retail banking conglomerates like a ton of bricks if banks will not independently curtail their detrimental closures of high street branches. Their actions to close high street branches—11 in the Bank of Scotland’s most recent announcement and dozens more to come, if it gets its way—will betray hundreds of thousands of loyal customers.
A bank operator that puts profit before its customers does not deserve to make a profit. Maybe we should introduce a profits tax, similar to the tax that applies to the oil industry, for banks. The public should think about whether the company has its long-term interests at heart. We should note its uncaring, callous business model and the fact that the group made £6.7 billion in profit last year. I think that many constituents would find that those billions of pounds would be better spent on the national health service, schools and lowering energy costs, rather than rewarding shareholders and awarding bankers bonuses. The bank’s motto should be “Didn’t care, didn’t listen, won’t care, don’t care”.
I have one more thing to say. I have been here for only a short time, but I wish everyone who is leaving a safe journey through the rest of their life.