Community Benefit Societies

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:42 pm on 7 December 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:42, 7 December 2021

Llywydd, I very much agree with what Alun Davies said there. We are committed to supporting the creation of a community bank for Wales, headquartered here in Wales, owned and run for the benefit of its members as a mutual community financial institution. I know that the aim of Banc Cambria is to provide every day full retail banking services, particularly in those communities where we've seen a flight of mainstream financial institutions, leaving many high streets bereft of facilities on which many people have relied. I very well remember, Llywydd, a visit to Buckley with my colleague Jack Sargeant, where, from a single spot on the high street, Jack was able to point to four different buildings—landmark buildings a couple of them—that, even five years ago, had been occupied by mainstream banks, every one of them gone from that high street. And the importance we attach to the idea of developing a community bank for Wales is to bring those services back to high streets in the way that Alun Davies suggested, and particularly to do so in those places where those mainstream financial institutions, which made a lot of money out of those communities, have fled, very often leaving very little behind.