00:00David Chadwick. It's a pleasure to serve under your chairship and I'd like to
00:07thank the Honourable and gallant member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross
00:11for securing this timely debate. We heard just last week that the banks will be
00:16closing more of their doors on their own customers. Lloyds Bank have decided to
00:20close an extra 136 bank branches despite making 7.5 billion pounds in
00:29pre-tax profit in 2023, an increase of 57%. This followed years of tax cuts
00:36given to them by the past Conservative government and Lloyds has decided to
00:41reward its customers by closing its doors on them. Well shame on Lloyds Bank.
00:47Banks have been permanent fixtures on our high streets for centuries. The
00:51Lloyds Bank branch in Bracken was founded in 1778 and is part of our
00:56town's history. Bank closures will reduce footfall in our town centres
01:01hurting the local economy. Pontedour's Lloyds Bank will also close in November.
01:07Over 300 local residents have already told me about the challenges that this
01:13will cause them. The elderly and vulnerable people in Pontedour deserve
01:17to have somewhere safe and easy to go to access their own cash and the same is
01:22true of local businesses. Pontedour is a gorgeous town with some very successful
01:28high street businesses and the banks closing will make life harder for those
01:32local traders. The banks are abusing their market dominance to pile pressure
01:37and costs on the local businesses that can ill afford it. Local traders are
01:43being told to make further and further journeys just to access cash. That's
01:48piling the costs onto them and our local economies will suffer as a result.
01:52Imagine being a wheelchair user in Pristine. After the bank branch on that
01:57high street closes on March the 3rd, the nearest banking hub when it opens will
02:02be in Leinster, 14 miles away. The bus journey time to get there is two and a
02:09half hours. Why are we letting our banks do this to people? Whilst these bank
02:14branches remain open, the government must ensure that they remain so and remind
02:21Lloyds Bank and all the other banks that it is the government that's in charge
02:25and setting the conditions for our banks and not the other way around.
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