Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:33 pm on 29 November 2022.
First of all, Llywydd, I agree with the series of points that Mark Isherwood made at the start of his question. It is very important that we are able to provide access to cash for those many communities that rely on it.
I am astonished that the Post Office in Wales had not caught up with the developments of the community bank, given that they have been very widely publicised and discussed repeatedly on the floor of this Chamber. Given that this is central to their activity, it is very surprising indeed to find that they appear to have been unsighted on it. You'd think they would wish to take some responsibility to make sure they were better informed.
The work with the Monmouthshire Building Society does continue. There are, as they will have explained, some regulatory hurdles that they have to pass. It's one of the reasons why we have formed an alliance with them in developing the community bank, because they are an established and well-respected financial service provider. Solving some of those regulatory hurdles is easier when you are working with them.
It is very important; I agree completely with what Mark Isherwood said. The community bank is intended to be an addition to the services that are there already—alongside, but not in competition with, credit unions, post offices and other service providers. Part of the reason why they will have said to the Member that it is better to get this right rather than to get it done quickly is to make sure that, when the community bank is operational, it has the right range of services and is able to provide them alongside those other services that are already there and that do a great deal of good in the lives of people for whom conventional financial institutions have, in recent years, more and more, stepped back from providing a service.