A Public Bank

Part of 4. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:27 pm on 6 December 2017.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 3:27, 6 December 2017

Well, let me begin by agreeing with what Andrew R.T. Davies has said about the inconsistencies in some of the arguments that we hear from the banking industry and how some of the undertakings that it has previously given, as Mick Antoniw said, never to be the final bank to close—that's a promise that they have failed to live up to, we know, in many instances. From the public's point of view, it is often quite difficult to understand the link between their own experience of a bank that is always busy when they visit it, which seems to be working flat out, when the bank says to them that it is closing because its services are no longer needed.

What I will do is make sure that the points that have been made this afternoon, particularly in relation to access to banking services by businesses in those parts of Wales where the banking coverage is now skeletal or non-existent—I'll make sure that Ken Skates has heard those points clearly and that he is able to take them up in the plans that he will be developing to make sure that businesses in Wales are not frustrated in their ability to conduct their own affairs or to grow because there aren't services for them that they are able to access.