Llywydd, in opening today's debate, I agreed to give one minute of my time in this final debate of the Senedd term to Rhun ap Iorwerth. Presiding Officer, I did table this debate, titled 'Banking Services in Cymraeg', following an issue brought to me by a constituent of Alyn and Deeside. They had decided to register an online bank account for their newborn child. They decided to register that with Halifax banking group. To do so, they had to upload a birth certificate. This is where the problems began. Birth certificates issued in Cymru are two-sided. The Halifax website, which is part of the Lloyds banking group, only allowed for a one-sided certificate to be uploaded. Well, what did this mean? This meant that it was a 'no' from Halifax. They would not allow bilingual Welsh birth certificates to be uploaded. Their system was clear. They only allowed English birth certificates. The answer that they gave to my constituents, Presiding Officer, was to, 'Travel to your nearest branch instead.' Well, this does raise some serious issues of concern for me and, I’m sure, many Members of the Chamber today. We are fiercely proud of being a bilingual nation, and financial service providers not allowing bilingual birth certificates is something that we simply cannot accept. Now, I am pleased that I did receive confirmation from the Financial Conduct Authority, in a letter to me yesterday, that Halifax, part of the Lloyds banking group, following the tabling of this motion, has, and I quote:

'recently completed the work to allow this to happen'.

Obviously, I am very pleased, and I’m sure that Members will agree with me about being pleased, about that action taken. But, quite simply, it shouldn’t have needed to be taken, and it shouldn't have taken a Senedd debate to correct that matter. But, Presiding Officer, it also raises the issue of bank closures. Right across Wales, banks have closed branches, claiming that all services can be accessed online. But that simply isn’t true. We've proven that today already. But it also is the case that whole towns have completely lost banking provision, often against the backdrop of community campaigners. In Buckley, in my own constituency, we have seen every single bank close. And at the time of the final bank closure, a petition launched by a local town councillor, Carolyn Preece, went viral across Wales and across the United Kingdom, with tens of thousands of people signing it, calling for banks to listen to people in their local communities and provide those local services we all need. And in my work as a Member of the Senedd for Alyn and Deeside, I continue to work to open Wales's first community bank in Buckley. It is the lack of responsiveness from high-street retail banks to local communities like Buckley in my constituency, like many across all of our constituencies, that partly drives my work in that area. I want to put it this way: we have been let down by high-street banks, and the failure to respect the Welsh language, as we have demonstrated today, is one in a very long line of examples.

Llywydd, of course a community bank would be different, and I'm sure, if you were to speak to Banc Cambria in the coming weeks, they would tell you of the importance they place on Cymraeg. But in the meantime, Llywydd, I want to appeal to every single high-street bank in Wales to take the Welsh language seriously, to take our local people and our local communities seriously.

As the Llywydd said before, this is the final piece of Senedd business in the Siambr of 2022, and, of course, I wanted to shine a light today on how banking services are not all they should be. Of course, I wanted to highlight the importance of Banc Cambria and the community bank for Wales, but, of course, I also wanted to wish you all, Members here and those working within our Senedd, Nadolig llawen, a very happy new year, but if I may, Presiding Officer, Llywydd, I'll reflect and revert back to my last contribution of the 2019 Senedd term by stating again: all I want for Christmas is a bank in Buckley.