Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent the withdrawal of ATMs ahead of the proposed powers in the Financial Services and Markets Bill coming into effect.

The Government recognises that cash remains an important part of daily life for millions of people across the UK, and remains committed to legislating to protect access to cash.

LINK (the scheme that runs the UK's largest ATM network) has commitments to protect the broad geographic spread of free-to-use ATMs and is held to account against these commitments by the Payment Systems Regulator. LINK has committed to protect free-to-use ATMs more than one kilometre away from the next nearest free ATM or Post Office, and free access to cash on high streets (where there is a cluster of five or more retailers) that do not have a free-to-use ATM or a Post Office counter within one kilometre. Furthermore, LINK operates a scheme to enable communities with poor access to cash to request an ATM.

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 responses to the Access to Cash consultation, setting out the government’s planned approach to legislating for access to cash.