Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, if he will make an assessment of the effect of recent bank branch closures on (a) rural and suburban communities and (b) the community of Sheffield Hallam constituency.

The Treasury does not make assessments of the bank branch network. The decision to close a branch is a commercial issue for the management team of the bank. However, Government believes it is important the impact on communities must be understood, considered and mitigated where possible.

The Financial Conduct Authority undertook an analysis of branch closures as part of their Strategic Review of Retail Banking Business Models. This analysis can be found in Annex 1 of the final report (https://www.fca.org.uk/publication/multi-firm-reviews/strategic-review-retail-banking-business-models-final-report.pdf)