Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Housing and Local Government – in the Senedd at 3:01 pm on 15 May 2019.
Minister, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, like many other communities in Wales, has suffered bank closures in recent years, such as the Barclays bank branch in Aberfan and Lloyds bank in Rhymney. This has made the availability of cash machines even more important to enable people to access their cash. However, a report in the magazine Which? found that free-to-use cash machines were disappearing at a rapid rate, with nearly 1,700 machines across the United Kingdom starting to charge for withdrawals in the first three months of this year. Minister, do you agree that charging for cash withdrawals will have an adverse effect on financial inclusion and will you make representations to those companies that provide cash machines, stressing the importance of free transactions to communities such as Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney?