Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they will take to ensure that each town and large village retains at least one branch of a mainstream bank.

Decisions on the branch network are a commercial matter for banks and Government does not intervene in those decisions. However, the Government believes it is important that customers can still access over the counter banking services wherever they live. That’s why the Government supports the Post Office Banking Framework Agreement, which enables 99% of personal customers and 95% of small business customers to carry out their everyday banking at one of the Post Office’s 11,500 branches.