Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate his Department has made of the number of closures of (a) bank branches and (b) free-to-use ATMs in (i) Coventry North East constituency, (ii) Coventry, (iii) the West Midlands and (iv) England in each of the last three years.

The Government does not make direct assessments of bank branch networks.

With regards to ATMs, LINK (the scheme that runs the UK’s largest ATM network) publishes the total of free-to-use ATMs across the UK online. As of April 2022, LINK reported that there were around 41,000 free-to-use ATMs in the UK. LINK’s Monthly ATM Footprint Report also publishes information monthly on the break down by constituency.

More broadly, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) publishes data on access to cash coverage across the UK. As of the third quarter of 2021, the FCA reported that nearly 96% of the UK population are within 2km of a free-to-use cash access point.

The Government intends to introduce legislation on cash access as part of the Financial Services and Markets Bill when Parliamentary time allows. The Government recently published a summary of response to the Access to Cash consultation, setting out the government’s planned approach to legislating for access to cash.

Alternative options for access to banking services can be via telephone banking, through digital means such as mobile or online banking, and the Post Office. The Post Office Banking Framework allows 99% of personal banking and 95% of business banking customers to deposit cheques, check their balance and withdraw and deposit cash at 11,500 Post Office branches in the UK.