Bank Closures and Banking Hubs

Lewis Cocking Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) for securing this important debate.

Like so many places across the country, bank branches have closed at an alarming rate in my constituency. Not so long ago, residents could pop down to a branch of every major high street bank in the towns of Waltham Cross, Cheshunt and Hoddesdon. Just last week, Halifax became the latest bank branch to shut its doors in Waltham Cross, while in Hoddesdon the former site of the Barclays remains empty, a scar on an otherwise vibrant town centre. In my town of Cheshunt, a town of 40,000 people, not a single bank branch remains. That simply cannot be right.

The lack of in-person banking facilities is depriving people of access to vital services. For so many older and vulnerable people, it is causing huge difficulty and frustration, as they are forced to rely on digital services such as apps and smartphones.

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I particularly wish to draw his attention to the plight of blind people. Royal National Institute of Blind People research in 2023 found that 28% of blind and partially sighted people never used the internet, they struggle with ATMs, and they struggle too with travel to banks.

[Lewis Cocking]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. It is really important that we expand the rules to get banking hubs in more locations across the country. Not least of all, my nan does not do online banking. Every time I go and see her, she badgers me about it. She will specifically bank with someone where she can have face-to-face services, because she will not do online banking. It is a real struggle, because some banks say, “Well, you’ve got to telephone.” But even then, one has to have a smartphone to get a code on the app for security, so it is very difficult for our older and disabled constituents to access those vital services.

When Barclays went from the high street in Hoddesdon, it did a “Barclays local”. Through the good work of my Conservative-run Broxbourne council, we managed to get it into the Spotlight, our local theatre, but it is cashless. That is nonsense! Its bread and butter business as a high street bank is to deal with cash and get people access to its cash and banking services, but it wants to run a service that is now cashless. We tried in Cheshunt—as I said, a town of 40,000 people with no banking services—to get the NatWest banking van at the car park of our Laura Trott sports centre, but again it would only offer a cashless service. This is bread and butter to the high street banks. They should accept cash and we should bring forward legislation to ensure that our constituents across the country have access to banking services. We need to look at the rules, because waiting until the last bank is in our high street does not promote consumer choice or solve people’s banking and access to cash needs.

On buses, my constituents are lucky if the bus even turns up—we get one bus once an hour—so including public transport in analysis of banking hub locations is unreliable. We need to widen the criteria to enable more banking hubs to be opened up across the country.