 Good morning, and welcome to the 19th meeting of the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee for 2018. May I ask everyone present to turn off or turn to silent any electrical devices? We've received apologies from committee member Kezia Dugdale and also apologies from Dean Lockhart for this session. He'll be joining us later, as well as a couple of other members who will be joining us shortly. Item 1 is a decision by the committee to take items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Are we all agreed? Yes. Thank you. Now, we turn to our inquiry on the impact of bank closures. First of all, before I go on to ask the committee members to introduce themselves, the witnesses we have today, as I face the panel of witnesses from left to right, first of all Professor Cliff Beavers, who is the chairman of Juniper Green Community Council, Alasdair McKillop, who is the chair of Currie Community Council, then Paul Alexander, head of business development and sales strategy at the Scottish building society, Lynn Turner, regional officer of Unite Scotland, and finally Keith Driver, a policy manager at Citizens Advice Scotland. I welcome all of our witnesses today, and then I'll ask committee members perhaps just to introduce themselves by name, starting on my right. Gordon MacDonald, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands. Jim Johnson, MSP for the Highlands and Islands. Colin Beattie, MSP for Midlothian North and Musselborough. Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Cobrigan Creson. John Mason, MSP for Glasgow Shetleston. Gordon Lindhurst, committee member MSP for Lothian. Andy Wightman, MSP for Lothian. Thank you very much. If I could start with a fairly general opening question, and I know that evidence has been submitted in writing to the committee, so perhaps we could just start off, and perhaps I could indicate to witnesses there's no need to operate the microphones, this will be operated by the sound desk, so no need to press any buttons, and if you want to come in and answer or respond to questions, don't feel you need to answer every question, but if you could indicate you'd like to come in simply by raising your hand, then I'll try and bring you in as we can. Now, if there are any areas that you don't feel you've been able to cover today or provide full detail because we have limited time in this session, then please do so in writing following the session. That option is available to all of our witnesses here today. So if I could start just by asking perhaps for the headline in terms of who you think are most affected by bank closures and if witnesses would like to come in on that, who would like to start? Lynn Turner. Chair, I would say that both communities and employees are affected by the decision of RBS. If I can just touch on the employees at the moment, this is the fifth round of branch closures since I've been an officer of RBS. Clearly, this last announcement on 1 December, which is now for 52, which inevitably will be 62 branch closures, has had a detrimental effect on not only employees, but also the communities that it serves and has been there for a number of years. Alasdair McHillop and then Professor Beavers. Thank you, Gordon. Personally, my focus really is on those people living with dementia and the elderly and those living with isolation. And whilst I fully accept that the foot traffic in branches has reduced dramatically, for those who are left, it is a hugely important asset for the community and for those people in particular. Because they are not able to travel, for example, if we take an example of curry, it is two buses that they would have to get to their nearest branch. It is totally unacceptable, I feel, for banks to just dispose of what are very long serving customers of the banks. I mean, I've been speaking to ladies and gentlemen who have been 30-odd years plus with Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank of Scotland. I think that it's very, very short-sighted that they're almost throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Rather than look for other avenues, for example, of smaller branches or part-time branches or using them in conjunction with something else, they have just decided just to close them and to leave the communities that they served with very, very few amenities. I mean, we have lost the banks, we have lost, we are possibly going to lose our school. There's very little left, and I think bearing in mind that the Royal Bank, especially, who are partly still, partly on by ourselves and are making substantial profits of one over a billion pounds, really have to look at themselves and decide who do they serve. I mean, I understand that their company is looking for profit, but I think that they also have to look at serving the communities that they have done for many, many years. Thank you, Gordon. Thank you, and Professor Bevers. Thank you, Gordon. Perhaps one point of accuracy, I was the chair of during the Green and Babatomains community council, but I'm now an ordinary member of that committee. Apologies. It's obviously the elderly, the disabled in our communities that are most affected. A number of disabilities have problems going online. My own problem with having to use a screen reader, but that's not the only problem. There are people who can't remember the long list of numbers that they have to have in order to access a bank account online or by telephone. So the issues there are in our communities, and as Alistair has said, it's difficult for them also to get on a bus or two buses to get into town to go to their allotted bank, but there's a big impact on our communities as well through the business community. The fishmonger in Juniper Green tells me that, since RBS closed, he's down 15 to 20 per cent on his takings. He checked with a colleague near Golden Acre where two banks have closed, and apparently he's down 20 to 25 per cent on takings. Now these small retailers and shopkeepers in our communities are the lifeblood of the community because let me give you an example of two or three weeks ago when the snow came suddenly. It was the fishmonger, the butcher and the greengrocer in our communities that kept people with food when the big beasts of commerce had their lorries stuck on the motorways of Scotland. So they're not only important to keep the trade, but they also keep the social fabric of a community together. You'll be asking for research at some stage. There is a piece of research from UK government in December 2016, which indicates when a bank leaves an area, 63 per cent of investment is lost in that community. Juniper Green, Curry, Collington, Baleno represents something like 20,000 people. So when RBS closed last year, it was like the last bank in town leaving that community. There are now no banks on the A70, a main artery into Edinburgh and 1.6 million, it is estimated, is lost every year in investment to the community when the last bank in town leaves. So that is a big problem. Paul Alexander, Keith Dribara. From our perspective, our members are serviced throughout Scotland with five branches and a network of local agents. Those local agents are generally solicitors' offices. What happens is that our members can pay in money into their savings accounts and they can take money out of their savings accounts through those agents. They need to have a link to a local bank to pay in the cash, to pay in the checks that they are taking, and at times to top up their cash floats. So the issue that we have for serving our members, particularly in the rural areas, is that if we see the closure of that banking connection, it is very difficult for us to maintain the agents' offices and how they can deal with the savings transactions. We can do it through a local post office, but, as we know, some of the post offices can be parts of retail shops. There are security elements around somebody taking cash or a large amount of checks to pay into a post office if they are not protected in the same way from fraud and other threats. There is an impact to our members if banks were closing, particularly in the rural areas. The citizens advice bureau advises about 210,000 consumers each year across Scotland. We consulted with the bureau in the areas that are going to be worst affected by the bank closures or who have already been affected. What was clear from what they were saying is that the people that are most vulnerable to change are the ones that are going to be affected. The people that are more likely to have problems accessing digital services have proved broadband speeds in rural Scotland. We did some work that showed about 20 per cent to consumers that still are not online. We have concerns that there are a lot of people who are being pushed towards online banking that are unable to take that up or have physical barriers to doing so. We also found that older people are particularly affected. We had a look at public transports. We did work a couple of years ago looking at access to banks through public transport. We found that people living in rural areas typically had to travel about a 40-minute round trip to their bank using buses. That is going to increase significantly as the bank closures take place. Lastly, I echo the points on businesses. The citizens advice bureau raised that small businesses are going to be really badly affected in terms of getting change, depositing cash, and that applies equally to charities and community groups that rely on small amounts of cash, depositing, and things like that. Since the advice bureau is saying that there is a security risk to them, it is adding a lot of pressure to volunteers. There is an impact right across vulnerable consumers, businesses and charities and community groups. We will now come to questions from Andy Waightman. Thank you very much, convener. Thank you for coming this morning. Obviously, Branches has been closing for some time now, Linda. You were mentioning previous closure programmes. Concern has led to the development of the access to banking standard, which requires advance notice, public impact assessments, making customers aware of alternative solutions. In any bank closures that you are involved with, are you aware of the exercise that has been carried out? Can I just say the round before this one? I looked at the Whitburn branch closure in West Lothian, and if you had a look at the impact assessment, it was clearly an impact assessment. We raised that at the Scottish Affairs Select Committee because it has numbers on a website, but it does not tell you anything with regard to the impact on that branch closure, vulnerable customers and all that. We dispute the impact assessment done by RBS, and we have been clear about that from day one. All the impact assessments? Absolutely. It is a fudge. Other banks? I am not too sure of what other banks have done because solely I am concentrating on RBS, but the RBS impact assessment on branch closures clearly is not a clear impact assessment. I am sure that that will be echoed by Codd. Just to reflect on the Bank of Scotland, Gordon MacDonald and myself, among others, visited the Bank of Scotland when they were deciding to close our branch in Cury. The impact analysis was an absolute disgrace. It was a tick box exercise. It was purely 100 per cent one-sided. All they really were looking at was footfall. They admitted to us that the customers in Cury were first-rate, brilliant customers, which is what they did not want, because they cannot make money off of us, because they have already got mortgages and they do not want insurance. There is a substantial amount of savings, but they were not interested in that. The risk assessment, as you rightly said, in the Bank of Scotland certainly did not make any consideration to those who are living in isolation or loneliness. Basically, they said, well, there is going to be the internet access and we will get on with it. Bearing in mind that in rural areas like ourselves in Cury and Bellerno, the broadband is in terms of quite slow and often prone to breakdown, and it is an argument that really is a non-argument, in my opinion. Keith Drobara What worries me most about the business assessments and access to banking standards is that there is no power consultation with community groups or consumers or customers, so making an impact assessment without really asking what the impact is going to be on actual people. It is very much a business-led assessment. Going forward, you need to consult with the community about what the alternatives are or what the impact is going to be before you can make that assessment or make a decision. Professor Bevers Lynn Turner Call me Cliff Gordon, please. I will do that, Cliff. Thank you very much. The access to banking protocol was something that we picked up fairly early on when RBS decided to close in Juniper Green. When we looked at that document, it was clear that the only thing that you could hold them to account on was the Equality Act. Even then, it was easy for them to dance around the fact that they were not going to cover issues of disability for people in our community. The access to banking protocol is worthless. It is just a piece of paper that allows the banks to pretend that they are consulting with communities. In my experience, there was no consultation whatsoever. It was an exercise that was decided in the headquarters and the group that came to talk to the community was simply told that you are closing the branch and you are taking the ATM as well. That is also a big issue for us in Juniper Green because we have no post office nor any ATM. On the evidence on 17 January that RBS caved to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee when it was the CEO for personal and business banking said that we do not have to consult with communities. I just thought that that was ludicrous. Incidentally, he has been asked to appear in front of many public meetings in the boarders and has refused to do that. Thank you very much. When you say that it is one-sided and focused on footfall, are you talking about footfall? Sorry, I cannot remember who said that. Is that focused on footfall in the bank? There is no assessment made of the impact on footfall in the general area of the loss of that? None whatsoever. All that is interested in it. It waxed politically about a 70 per cent drop in footfall, but only 80 people come during the day. It is all about money, but it is not worth for a while. They do not even consider downsizing the branch or doing anything different. They just use that as a big stick to hit us with to say that they are not using it, so they are going to lose it. That is their impact assessment. If they are losing money, they are not interested in looking at any way of revising how the bank works or the branch works, they just say that there is only very limited footfall costing us money, we would close it. Cliff Pavers, you mentioned anecdotal evidence of a fishmonger, I think that it was. Yes, it was. In your community, 15 per cent is taking down. That is what it told me. Are you aware of studies that look less in a systematic way? The one that I mentioned, Andy, was the one that the UK Government did, a briefing paper in December 2016, when it was an analysis of post codes where the last bank in town had left. It was a loan investment to SMEs, so it is only a tip of the iceberg. When a bank lives in an area and people have to bank elsewhere, they take their shopping elsewhere too. Money leaves the community not only because they do not have the opportunity to get loans, but also because people are spending it elsewhere. One thing to confirm, from your previous hearing, is that I did an informal check around our own retailers and they still say that it is 70 to 30 cash v card in communities. That confirms what you heard at the last hearing. So, just coming back to your fishmonger, 15 per cent down. He's a good man. This is local people who are no longer buying fish in their shop because they're going somewhere else. They're going somewhere else because they need to go somewhere else for banking and therefore they might as well buy fish there too. Well, that's obviously not a step that I can take because all I can do is tell you what he claims to me, which is that since the bank closed, he's 15 to 20 per cent down. I said that he's that true elsewhere and he went and checked with another one of his colleagues, the one that I mentioned at Golden Acre. Just to really add to that, Andy, is that, needless to say, I like Cliff, I made a pop quiz of our local businesses and 70 to 30 was certainly what they felt was 70 per cent cash. The reason I was agreeing with Cliff and Boris is that anecdotally, one of the shopkeepers said that what happens is because they used to pop into the bank and get some money and then spend it. What happens now is that they have to go out of town. Rather than having the money and coming all the way back to Cury, they just buy the shop nearest that particular branch, which is there. That's why they're concerned that they're losing the footfall traffic because they're in the bank anyway. Well, the shop's just across the road, I'll do it all in one. That's really where I feel the knock-on effect is. That's anecdotal though. I mean, I can't, there's no proof of that, but that's just... Thanks. John Mason. Thanks, convener. I think that aiming at Mr Turner for starters, although others might want to comment on this, I think that you might have made some quite strong comments about all of this, which I think is helpful, I have to say, for the committee to know what people are thinking. Specifically, I think that I'm right in saying that you've said that RBS has misled the public on a number of counts, and those are particularly measurement of footfall, scale of job losses and the costs or savings of the proposed closures. Would you like to comment on those three areas? If we start with footfall, the information presented to me, let's take Maliq for instance, it has nine customers. In fact, it has 1,001 customers. The nine customers at RBS counted were nine customers who came into the branch on a weekly basis. The evidence that was presented to me was that RBS and Maliq only had nine customers, so that's why we're closing it, not true at all. I would have thought that footfall, as a lay person, meant in a week 99 people came into the branch. No, but it still has customers. If I go into the Maliq branch and I'm a customer somewhere else but I happen to be in holiday in Maliq, I wouldn't count. No, because you're not a regular customer of those nine, so the figures were massaged. Even if you take the redundancy figures, which the branch presented as 1,68, in fact, it was 321, the branch's 1,68 was full-time equivalence, the actual head count was 321 job losses, because if you had two part-time people, they were just being counted as one. As I said earlier, this is the fifth round of branch closures that I've taken on being with our officer for RBS. If you continue to reduce the branch network, people will go to the next RBS branch and then people will go to the next RBS branch. People are actually queuing out their dough now at lunch times in RBS branches. Also, they've not increased the staff in these branches that remain open, so staff aren't getting their lunch, they're two-handed or sometimes three-handed, so it's a bit of a mixed message that RBS is sending out there. Yes, well, certainly, my experience in Shettleston, when they closed our branch, that I used it and it was well used and you always had to queue when that was my experience but it still was closed. I'm intrigued by the word footfall and what they mean by it and what most of us would mean by it. If it's only customers that they're measuring, do you think that they're actually measuring how many people cross the door every week, or is that not even being measured? They're counting people who are actually entering the bank on a weekly basis doing money in, money out. Theoretically, they could have a city centre branch say with no actual customers for that branch, but that branch could still be very busy because loads of people who work in the city centre and have their branch elsewhere are using that branch, but they would end up saying that the footfall was nill. Is that right? That's right, because they're not regular customers to that particular branch. This was highlighted by Ian Blackford in his adumant debate. Malling is just not the only one that, as it loc else, there was 3,000 customers of the local RBS. Because many of us use, I mean I live in Glasgow but I'm in Edinburgh most of the week, so I use banks in Edinburgh as well, so I'm amazed or intrigued or whatever that that's the way they measure footfall. The third one was the costs and savings, can you say anything about that? Obviously, RBS has said that the 62 branches would cost £9.5 million, which is what 0.01 per cent of the profit that I announced there in February-March. This is a closure programme that did not have to happen. This is poorly driven by profit and RBS is turning its back on local communities. Do you think that there will be a loss to RBS? Although you suggested that people would just go to the next RBS branch, if I was living in my leg and if there was another bank there, I might be considering switching my bank. RBS has said that it will openly take people to the post office. It's not funny in respect of a branch colleague taking someone to the post office to show them how to use the post office. The UK minister has also said that they can vote with their feet, so you're a 70 per cent-owned British taxpayer organisation, and the minister, who is responsible for RBS under their brief, says that customers can vote with their feet. I think that some of my colleagues will follow up in the post office, because I think that's an area that we're interested in as well. Mr Alexander, are you going to say something? Yes, we do find that where branches such as RBS close, we do pick up a number of new savings members who will move savings to ourselves, so we see that in the local part of their rural community, such as Dunoon places like that. Can you just clarify for me, then, that you don't really operate like a bank in the sense, because I was a bit intrigued that you actually need either a bank or a post office nearby, if you're going to operate? That's absolutely correct, yes. We don't offer day-to-day transactional banking. We are there solely for a haven for savings or for mortgage advice throughout Scotland. But somebody could come in every day and take out £10 out of their savings account or put in 20 or something? They could, yes. Most of our savers, most of our members, don't do that, but occasionally somebody could do that, yes. Okay, thank you. Mr McKillop, did you— Just very briefly, just to give you an idea, when we had three banks, Belerno, Cury and Juniper Green. Bank of Scotland was in the middle, it was two Royal Banks. When the Belerno bank closed, all the customers trotted to Juniper Green. When Bank of Scotland closed, all the customers trotted to Juniper Green, which was absolutely full to the bust, but they decided that they were going to close the Royal Bank of Scotland in Juniper Green as well. There was no logic about footfall, because they were getting three banks into one, and even so, and the cliff fought very, very hard to retain the branch in Juniper Green. They didn't care about that, they just wanted to close the bank's end of story. The justification about low footfall doesn't really stand up when you look at the statistics of the two branches in Belerno and the Bank of Scotland joining the Royal Bank and then suddenly being told six once later that they are going to close as well. So, if it has nothing to do with footfall, is it to force people to stop using local branches and to use online or something else instead? John, I am very, very glad that you used that word, because you are absolutely correct. It is forced. People are being forced to go on to online irrespective of their needs are going to be serviced by that. As I was talking about those living with dementia and cliff alluded to, there is no way in the world that people would remember passwords, so they are going to be wide open to fraud and to all other sorts of nasty experiences, but again, the banks are not really interested in that. When Gordon and I were sat in the Bank of Scotland, they basically said that as well, well, you know, let your feet do the work. If you don't like what we are doing in the Bank of Scotland, go to another branch or go online, it's not as simple as that, but the banks are allowed to get away with that by saying, well, it is as simple as that because there is low footfall and there is no real evidence of that. I mean, it's just a cost-cutting exercise for cost-cutting's sake, I think. Okay, I think that Mr Beaver is once in next. Yeah, Cliff, please. Well, sometimes we use formal names here. Okay, okay. Just to say, we can't all be wrong. I know it's all anecdotal, but we all go into branches and the queues are out the door and the queues were out of the door in Juniper Green when they closed it on the argument of footfall. That's number one. Number two, where is the geography in these people? I mean, this is the headquarters of RBS and they didn't seem to know that the A70 would no longer have a bank along its stretch and that's 20,000 people. It just seems strange that they didn't talk to one another as banks and say, well, can we not leave one in that area and another in this area? For example, I think that there are six in Custafania, none on the A70. Can I ask, are they allowed to talk to different banks and arrange that between themselves? Maybe they're not allowed. They hide behind the commercial confidentiality, I'm sure, but it would have been a sensible thing to do for the community and for the country to do. It would have been something that could have been arranged and worked through. They can go in a room together to work out what the eyeball rate is, so they could go into a room and sort this out, I'm sure. Okay, thank you. Was it Mr Driver or did you want it? Yes, a couple of times it was mentioned about people, consumers voting with their fight, their feats to show displeasure with something or to make sure that they still have face-to-face contact with their banks. Scotland, in general, is more loyal as consumers. We tend to stick to the brands that we know that we've had long-standing relationships with, that we trust, and we probably term it a sticky consumer, so we're less likely to trust, so we need to break that cycle a little bit and encourage people to vote with their feet if they want to have a local bank branch. Unfortunately, it's not always an option, so there are too many closures where it's the last branch in town, so people don't have the option. It would be great if people were voting with their feet, but we do have this problem with loyal consumers or overly loyal consumers and the problem is that some people just don't have the option to vote with their feet, too. I'm talking of feet. Is your understanding of the measurement of footfall the same as Mr Turner's? I don't think that we have statistics on that. Certainly our bureau, when we asked them, were concerned that those were busy branches that they used and they didn't see the reasoning for it. We don't have figures on that, but our anecdotal evidence would suggest that, as well. A follow-up from Fulton MacGregor. I wanted to ask the panels maybe for Lyn Turner, but other members are free to come in as well. Do you think that RBS and the situation are exploiting the particular demographic likely to use the branches in terms of how they might protest? The example that I've given is the steps that RBS and my constituency is one due for closure. We had put out an online petition to be signed and it essentially flopped, regardless of how much we had pushed it. I was quite concerned with that because it wasn't what I was picking up in the streets and surgeries and other stuff, but when we put around our paper petition, around the local shops, it's through the roof, how it really is. I suppose that my question is, are RBS exploiting a particular demographic that may be aren't protesting in the way that others are now, like you see online petitions all the time? Yes, they are stretching the truth to some extent. Can I just pick up on a point that was earlier, as I said in my head, about shade banking? There needs to be a change in legislation in regards to the shade banking opportunity. Just coming back to your point, RBS is stretching the truth somewhat. Clearly, there is a feeling out there about when the last, potentially around the last bank of town as well, closing that people are angry, communities are angry about what RBS is, but RBS will plow on with that, regardless. Just on the point that I was making about paper, there are online surveys. I think that our stats and off-com stats say that there is still a stubborn kind of thief of the population that aren't online, so you are missing them entirely. Those are the people that are going to be most affected. We tend to do paper surveys to try to capture the hard-to-reach slash easy-to-ignore consumers, so it is very important that they are not brushed into the carpet, they are not missed out and that they are reached out to see what their experiences are. Just a quick question to Lyn Turner before we come on to Colin Beattie. You mentioned regulations about shared banking. We have just had the report from the Westminster Committee. Do you want to make any comment about the recommendations that it makes and whether they go far enough, particularly on that point? On the access to banking, there needs to be a statutory implementation with regards to that, because there is statutory regulation, because banks are self-regulating what happened back in 2008. There needs to be some teeth in respect of that. Clearly, the report says that they did not need to really shut those branches. There are issues around the 10 remaining branches, which is a political posturing, if you want, by RBS and politicians, because there is no criteria set about how those branches will remain open. There may have been an organisation appointed to do that kind of review, but I will not be surprised towards the end of this year if those 10 branches close. Obviously, it was news to me on a Sunday morning when an MP had the A wave saying that he has saved 10 branches. Obviously, I was straight on the phone to RBS because they are meant to consult with Unite, not politicians. Those are jobs at the end of the day. On the structure and how things move forward, are there other things that you would have liked to have seen proposed in terms of regulation from the Westminster Committee report? Are you satisfied with the conclusions that drew on recommendations? I am content with the stuff that came out of the Scottish Fife Select Committee's report, but I just think that with regard to the access to banking and consulting and impact assessments that you have viewed today, they do not go far enough. While banks in general will hide behind a commercial sensitive position, I think that there is an opportunity to learn lessons from that, and banks should consult before they make decisions. When RBS comes to me to say that we are going to be shutting out in so many branches, they do not do that the night before. There is a six to nine-month lead-up to that. There is an opportunity for them to come to me and say that this is what we are going to do and consult in a proper manner. They do not do that because of the high behind the commercial sensitive issues. I guess that one of the main arguments for banks closing is that from the bank's perspective, they are no longer economic and that this is a classic case of market failure. Can the private sector deal with that market failure? In other words, if there is demand, surely supply will move in behind that in the form of maybe other banks, credit unions, post office and a mix of other bodies. How realistic is that? Cliff? It is not realistic in the short term. It could work, but it does require quite a bit of work behind the scenes. The post office can provide some services, but I am told that they are not enough and not extensive enough. The credit unions are small and they again are having difficulties in expanding in a way that would fill the gap. There have been too many closures. I would like to call them community banks rather than credit unions. The trouble with credit union in an area like Juniper Green, Ballerno, Curry does not have the right feel to it, but we have been working with Castle community bank and they have performed very well on the east of Edinburgh. I think that you are meeting with their general manager next week, so you will find out a lot more about what their plans are. We are working with them. They have promised to provide a mobile van service into the villages of the upper water of Leith to fill the gap, but it will only be part of a solution. It needs a lot more help from people like yourselves. Keith Driver, you mentioned the private sector deal with the market failure. Maybe it is the bank that has failed to provide the service in the way that the community needs. Rather than reducing hours, it should be looking at when people need banking services and then people would come and access the services, so maybe it needs to adjust rather than close. In terms of post offices, there is certainly a viable alternative for some. Every bank in the UK has an agreement with the post office to provide banking services through them, but it depends on whether you can access the post office. We know that there are thousands fewer than there were back in 2010, so there is an issue there. Post offices are not available as they used to be, so some people cannot access banks or post offices. In terms of small businesses, we did a survey and found that small businesses and rural areas were twice as likely to use banking services in post offices than they are in urban areas, so there is that demand for it, but it cannot cater for all businesses that it is not like for like. It has limits on the amount of deposits and the amount of cash that it can get out, so for larger small businesses, it does not work for them. Post offices can work for some, but not for all. It is not a like for like replacement because not everybody can access it and it does not provide every service that consumers or businesses require. Are post offices the only short-term viable alternative at present? I would say so. Clearly, there are issues with regard to mobile vans, access with disability access, and people are doing transactions in the middle of a car park. There are security issues around mobile vans as well, but say in that, if branches or post offices are cured out of the door and people have large amounts of money, there are security issues all round. I think that banks are being very short-sighted, as my colleague at the end there said. They should be thinking more out the box. The branch network, as it stands, is not perfect, but surely what they could have done is to look at that and offer a smaller bank, reduced hours, combined. For example, as community councillor, I would love to have been able to fund the bank of Scotland branch and use it as a community hub, which would have a bank in it, so that we could use that for many more purposes, not just a bank, not just a branch. That is the way to go for the small rural areas. It is almost like the way that the post office is to survive in the rural areas post offices are everything. You name it, they sell it probably. In a slightly different model, I think that if the banks looked at that and had a small area within, like they do in supermarkets and things like that, the building could be multi-purpose, but the branch would tag on to that, so the expenses would be shared, but the building itself would be far more useful to the community, and I think that the bank would get credit for that. It is not rocket science. In the old days, I am a banker for 35 years, finished as a senior manager of the Bank of Scotland, but we had what were called sub offices, which were incredibly popular. We had them in all sorts of places that would not be financially viable. We had them in large factories, we had them in schools, and that worked very well. The cost of that was very small, but it engaged the communities that they served, so the sub branch became a very important asset for the communities that we served. I do not understand why we have stopped doing that. We have become very rigid on what the banks think branches are and what the customers expect the branches to be. There is a huge disconnect, and, as I said earlier, the banks' knee-jerk reaction to that is to close them. They do not want to think about how they could use them in other ways, how they could be an asset, they just want to close them and move on. You can only do that when there is a branch to go to. When there are no branches to go to, where do you go? In the post office, it is totally impractical. As a banker, post officers are simply not set up to be banks, because they are not banks. A bank is a bank for a reason. The services that they provide are not what post officers are set up for, so there is a short-term solution to absolutely post offices. However, let us have a bit of imagination and think out the box, and make branches far more multipurpose. Just to support Alasdair, there is evidence down south that there are some regional building societies that have done creative things such as a local library was due to close through lack of funding. The Newcastle Building Society took it over and paid for the library to keep running and opened a branch on there, so there are ways around it with a bit of creative thinking. Clif? One slight problem in our area now is that the banks have sold all those buildings that could have been used for the activities that Alasdair was talking about, community use. In Juniper Green, we have very few public buildings and it would have been great to have the RBS building and use that as a community hub for banking and for other purposes, because it is a big enough building to do all sorts of things. The post office is not the solution, but it can be part of the solution. Credit unions are not the solution, but it could be part of the solution, but they need a lot of support behind the scenes to help that to happen. We probably have about 20 years to phase that through so that all our older people can move on, and we will come to dying at some stage. On that cheery note, leaving aside the rights and wrongs of branch closures, coming back to the point that we have heard from retailers that there is a huge demand for local bank branches. We hear from individuals, community councils and all sorts of bodies that there is a huge demand. Why is not somebody moving into that space? Why is not that happening? Maybe one of the challenger banks or whatever. Why is not somebody recognising this? A bank is not a supermarket, it is not a shop. There are legalities involved, there is security involved. It is not as simple as that. A lot of the smaller banks are very much area-based, so they find it very difficult to expand to other areas without the guarantee of x amount of customers. You are not comparing like with like, I would suggest. It takes a big company to step in, and the small building societies and the community banks are too young to do that at the moment. In 20 years, when we are all dead, we will have that. The banks sound horrible, but they have the older population of just ignored and said that they are going to die anyway, so we do not have to spend much time on them. That is really the cynical view that they are taking. As I said, I do not think that the smaller banks are really fit to do that at the moment. They are too young. One bank that looked as though it might be the sort of thing that would help in a community is the metro bank, but it is really around London. It has not expanded further north yet. It did look as though it had the right kind of attitude for today's world of dealing with not only the young but the old. We should not forget the young, by the way, in this number of people in our public meetings said to us, we like to take our children to the bank and put money in to show them that this is how you save money. We have lost that in our communities because there are not places for them to go now. I know that the banks are doing things like going to the schools, but to some extent that is a disconnect for kids because they do not see something that is theirs. It is an exercise that they are having at school, but we must not forget the young in this. It is all part of the same thing in communities. I mentioned dying, by the way, because when somebody dies in a family and you have to go and deal with a bank over changing the bank account, you have to go to the bank at their convenience, not yours, and it is a very difficult time for families when they have lost someone. That can be an issue, and that brings us right back to what is missing, is the face-to-face in banking. That is what we are losing in our communities. Lynn Turner, it is just to touch on a point about if you go to a branch, you are automatically met by someone who will try to guide you to a machine where you do not need to speak to a teller. It is all automated. I stand in the queue because I am principled. I do not want a machine to take my money. Someone talked about the banks bullying people into online banking. There is a real case for that. That was exposed in the daily record with regard to branch tellers having targets to move people on to online banking. Paul Alexander. I think that for somebody to step into that space is very difficult because it all comes down to cost versus the scale of the business. The difference is that, for example, we are a very small financial institution in Scotland, which is 170 years old, but the scale is very small. For us to look at stepping in, the cost will be prohibitive because we will not be able to give our members value through products to do that. RBS, Lloyd's and massive organisations, the impact in terms of cost to them is minimal compared to a smaller organisation, so I think that a lot of it is around the cost versus the scale. Gordon MacDonald. Thank you very much, convener. Good morning. We have already touched upon what the alternatives are of post offices or credit unions on mobile banking units. I am aware that, in my constituency, we have had the introduction of the mobile banking units in Ballerno, Currie and Juniper Green. Is the panel a view on how effective a 30-minute slot is in a particular area? Gordon MacDonald, that is very interesting because I was speaking to two quite elderly ladies last week, and one of them says that it took me 30 minutes to go in the bloody bus, because she is not very good at walking. To be honest, she did not like it at all. I think that you raised this about security. She felt very, very vulnerable in the middle of the library, but she felt very, very vulnerable in using it, and she did not think that it was long enough. She was very happy that it was there, but she just felt that it really was not fit for her or her sister, because, as I said with their infirmatory, they really cannot get up the steps. It is really quite difficult. When they were in there, they just felt that there was no privacy, and it was not a pleasant experience, so they probably will not be using it again, but it is something that certainly the younger and more mobile are very happy with. But a 30-minute slot, Gordon, is just ridiculous. It is just not enough time. Well, it is not enough time, but it is 30 minutes that we did not have. We have worked quite hard to get something back into our communities. I mentioned the fact that we are losing shopping, we are losing loan income, so to get something back is worthwhile. My experience of the use in Juniper Green has been that businesspers, instead of having to send a couple of guys into town with the takings, are able to use the ban. Another business was able to get checks in, which were taking him to drive into town, so that is another aspect of the use of transport that is another knock-on from the bank closures. The school is using it on a regular basis, and they have said to me that it is saving us two hours in going into town to do the banking that they have to do. I do not know what they have to do, but it is saving them time, and there have been at least 10, 15 or so people using it fairly regularly, older people. I managed to get up and down the steps okay. I can see that that is an issue, and it does not cater for the wheelchair people either. They claim that that is because when they did have the lift, the wheelchair folk did not use it. Lloydsbank, as I understand it, has a wheelchair lift. We have made contact with a lady from the Royal School of Art in London, who is doing a research project for Age UK in looking at banking for the future for elderly people and disabled people. She is looking at Dartmouth, Liverpool, London and Edinburgh, and we are running a workshop on 19 June for volunteers who can come and tell their story so that we can try to get the ladies who had trouble getting on the van in Currie to come along to that so that they can tell their story. She is a designer, and we might be able to look at things that are a little bit more flexible so that maybe the sides, like these vans in the States, the RVs, that you can expand the space so that there is more, well, better space, better security and things like that. Those are issues that we are hoping to look at from this perspective. 30 minutes is not enough, and I have been promised that when the community bank comes, they will spend a morning in each of our communities. That is something to look forward to. A lot of people will embrace that from what I have heard. They are still asking me, when is that community bank coming? Any way to accelerate their limited services would be appreciated. Just on that point, Cliff, about the castle community bank coming in, do you think that that is the reason why RBS put their mobile banking units in the first place? Because he originally refused to do so. I ask that question, and the answer is yes. Quickly. The RBS managing director of personal banking in Scotland said in September 2016 that a service is consistently used by fewer than 10 customers. We will review the sustainability of that branch stop. Do you think that that has basically been set up to fail with only being 30 minute stops? The cynics in our community are telling me that. If you do not use it, it will go. That is why we are encouraging people to use it. We have advertised it, as you know, in CMB and with posters. As far as we are concerned, we have been turning up each time as a community council to the van to make sure that things go smoothly. We are actually talking to someone from RBS so that we can iron out any issues. I would like to think, and I tend to be a bit of an optimist in these matters, that RBS is in listening mode. I think that Keith Driver wanted to talk about that. I was just going to come in on the precarious nature of it. A fixed bank is much more fixed or a consumer than something that comes in once a week. As happened last month, they changed the routes. Some people are not on the routes anymore, so some may have no bank again. It can certainly help. As Cliff was mentioning, 30 minutes is better than nothing. I think that the other point that I wanted to make is that it has to be built around the community, not around the bank's needs. It has to be there at the right time and for the right amount of time, so it meets the needs of the community, not because it is on the right stop on the routes. It has to meet the needs of that community and each community needs to be separately assessed for its needs. My last question relates to ATMs. We are in a position where we have lost the banks and the post offices cannot cope. Mobile banking units are only there for 30 minutes. What about access to ATMs? What has happened over the peace in various communities? We lost the one when RBS left, so Junio Pagrin has a 5000 inhabitant community that does not have an ATM or a post office. Two others left from the area when the Bank of Scotland went, they took the one in Cury and the one in the post office in Cury went. I think that all the ones now in our area, apart from the one at the university, are outside. Again, some elderly people find that a little daunting on the security issue. Can I just say something to about the community bank, which is that we want this other service to come in, but in our area, and I think you're alluding to it, it was John, I was saying, why aren't other groups coming in? In areas like Belerno, Cury, Junio Pagrin, Collington, it's perceived that we're an affluent society and therefore the banks won't make money in those areas. People have got their mortgages, although there are young people coming in all the time, but cheap by jowl with those communities are other communities that are not so well off. I think that if we could get the community bank to have a permanent residence in one of those areas, a little bit like you heard at your last hearing, that Impreston Pans, Capital Credit Union, have opened up their office there and that's working for them. I think we could try and work something for Castle Community Bank that would work. They provide a service, a face-to-face service for what is perceived to be the affluent areas, but maybe have a permanent presence in our less affluent areas and see if we can get rid of some of those exorbitant HP shops that are also in our nearby communities. I think that you could help in that process, I think that you were in a position to do that. I think that almost everyone would like to come in, so perhaps Lyn Turner, then Alster and then Keith Drobara. There is uncertainty about the ATM network. I have a report on industry body wounds of cash deserts. If an ATM funding row is not resolved, some 8,000 machines in total could be removed. You are shutting branches, and the post office is struggling to cope, and there are potentially reductions of ATMs. Where do people get 60 per cent? There is still 68 per cent cash out there in circulation. We are not a cashless society, but we need ATMs. Can I go back to a point about the mobile vans from Unite's point of view? Security is an issue, time slots are an issue, the reduction of time slots, no disability access, adverse weather. It is the privacy of it. People want to speak to the bank about when they do the big things in life. Unfortunately, someone has passed away in a family, so they need to wait for the van to come and have a discussion in front of everyone with a teller from a van about what to do with someone's estate. That is just totally wrong. I was listening to the chief executive of Bank of America, who was having a conversation about their branch network. He currently has four and a half thousand branches across America. He says that it is 30 per cent online, 70 per cent face-to-face. People in life want to speak to people when they do the big things, and that just speaks for itself. That is totally opposite to what RBS is saying, 70 per cent face-to-face, 30 per cent face-to-face, 70 per cent online. The other ATM that we have is Dr Surgery. It is totally inaccessible to those who are disabled. There is no consideration for those who are living in isolation who are disabled. I think that the bank closers are a double whammy for consumers and that they are losing that local support and advice, but the ATM that is being removed is just as bad for some people. There are lots of examples of towns and villages that have lost their bank, but the only ATM might be in the shop, and there are issues around the opening times of the shop. If the shop closes, what happens is that people lose access to cash completely. As we mentioned, there are security issues around accessing cash in the shop as well. I worry that, in what we mentioned about the problems with Link and the potential closure of privately run ATMs, particularly in rulers, I wonder if we are going to be here in a year or two years time talking just about ATMs. Bank closers are part of that. When we talk about banks, we have to think about banks, ATMs and post offices on the one. That is people's access to cash and access to financial services, and I think that all of them are under threats. ATMs are really important for consumers, and it is almost a disaster waiting to happen if things do not pan out, as we hope. I have mentioned in my earlier supplementary about the steps bank in my constituency, and it is referred to as the last bank in town, which I have actually got a real gripe with, because it is actually the last bank for about five or six towns. Instead of closing it down as the last bank in town scenario, I think that it should have been expanding to the other areas. I picked up what Clifford said is well about areas that have been seen as affluent, and steps in my constituency could probably be seen as quite affluent, but Moody's burn, for example, certainly is not. My questions are around community council taking ownership of banks, and I think that we have covered that. I will not get people to labour the point, but what I am interested in is whether there is scope for, if a bank is seen as the last bank in town with that caveat that I have said there, that it could be covered in a few towns, that there should really be something in place where the building or the premises is offered, as a first point, as offered to any viable community alternative. We contacted the Bank of Scotland immediately after we knew that they were closing, and it was just a flat no. It was just a commercial enterprise that wouldn't be willing to this open market. If you can get the money, we'll sell it to you, but there was no consideration. The sad thing is that we had legislation and agreements with banks that would always be the last branch in town that would be saved. Since that went, it's just been an open door for banks to close. Again, it's just commercial. There's one thing that can squeeze as much money out as possible. If the Bank of Scotland had offered, or in some way to eat for us to have that building, I'm sure that Cliff would agree if the Royal Bank in June of Green had said that we would have grabbed it with both hands and made it work, because it is our community and we would be engaging in it. There was so much that we could have done. In fact, we could do with the bank in Cury, as I said, as a community hub. We could use it for almost everything. We, like Cliff, have got very few facilities that we can use for communities. Yes, I would love to see something that is absolutely, absolutely undoubted. It would be a great thing for the bank, great publicity, but that's another story. Unfortunately, I feel in our communities that the horse has gone, but somebody made an interesting suggestion, which let me put to this group and see what you think about it. Why not a punitive tax on the banks when they sell their buildings of somewhere in the region of 50 per cent of sale price, which you could use to either help the specific community or have it in a pot that could be used for people to bid for for community use? Maybe that's a power you already have. Keith Driver. I'm just looking at press release on February from the Royal Bank that suggests that they will work with local communities to hand over buildings to development trusts in local communities. The important bit is that they said that there is no demand for a building that will do that, but I don't know how they measured that. I think that we should take them up on that and say, well, actually, you should just be doing that anyway, regardless of demands. I know that there is at least one of our bureau who has worked with them and is working to try to develop an advice hub in a remote area where advice and services is not currently provided easily. They are trying to take RBS up on that offer, but we should be pressing RBS just to, if they are going to close it, then they should be talking to the community groups. It's a shame that this has already happened, but that should be their first point. They should be looking to give it to the community rather than sell it. Cliff wanted to come back. It would have been sensible for them simply to rent it to communities, because then, at least, it would be used. The Bank of Scotland building in Currie hasn't been used, the Royal Bank of Scotland building in Juniper Green hasn't been used, but communities would find a use for them. They are just derelict to the minute and they are an eyesore to the communities. Costa seems to be the winner at the moment with ex-branches. I don't know if there is some sort of deal being done there. I think that there is a role for local government and, potentially, national government to support community groups to make it viable for them to take over buildings. I know the example that I know of, that local authority is involved, and that it is helping the process a lot to have a Government involved in supporting it. Picking up on that point, do you think that local government should be doing as standard when a branch is due or nominated for closure? I'm not sure as standard, but I think that they should certainly be involved in looking at what can be done. I definitely think that there is a role that they can have. I understand local authorities are under pressure with their budgets and so on, but I think that it can take a lot of boxes for local authorities as well, so it would certainly be encouraging them to be involved in that process. Thank you. We should be forced to engage with the communities that they have served for many, many years, and they are loyal customers over 30 years. You are absolutely right, sticky customers. That's how banks have made massive profits throughout the decades, because customers, no matter through thick and thin, will stay with the bank. I think that we have to stop the ridiculous charade of the banks saying that they have engaged with their communities when it's patently obvious that they haven't. I think that we need your help to make them do that properly. For example, if a bank is due for closure, that sparks a chain of events with the local authority that we then call a meeting in the bank that we have to attend. It sparks debate, absolutely. It brings members, community councils and other stakeholders together at the start of that process. At the start is the key. But the start has been nine or six or nine months ago. I get presented with a business case from RBS to say that we are going to be shut down. In fact, the business case with these 62 branches from Scotland was actually 168 branches that were cut in throughout the UK. Therefore, there is very little that I can as a trade union officer to mitigate what is in that business case, because the work has already been done. Consulting with a trade union is difficult for them. What are they going to do with the Joe Public? That's the issue. Are you saying that there should be a duty on the banks to consult before they take a decision to close a branch? That would be consultation, wouldn't it? I'm thinking that, in terms of the current banking protocol, we'd have to be changed. Clearly, that's what I said earlier on. There needs to be a statutory regulation with regard to consultation for bank branch closures. Access to banking protocol is not worth the paper that's written on. Keith Drawer, do you want to come? Yes, I do. It was just the 10 banks that there is going to be the independent review of over the summer that I've had to say of execution. I think that marks a small window of opportunity to do things much better. At the moment, it's very opaque and unclear how they're going to do the independent review. However, if they want to consult with consumers, if they want to work with community groups and do it properly, that represents an opportunity. I think that it takes committees and Governments to tell them that message and make sure that it actually happens. There's potential to do things better for those 10 banks. Perhaps it's an opportunity to demonstrate how it could operate. I am perhaps more cynical than Keith Drawer is, because we've had the access to banking protocol in 2015. We then had the access to banking standards in 2017 and yet we're still closing bank branches. Let me turn this on its head and let me say at the start that I am an absolute fan of credit unions, but we're talking about mitigating something where perhaps we should be further upstream. Lynn Turner's point about how we get in amongst the detail before those decisions are made. Let me explore a bit of that with you, because I think Unite Submission challenged us to say why are we talking about mitigation, surely we would be resisting closure. If you were to design a system that resisted closure or you wanted to see recommendations coming from this committee, what would they be? Your top two or three? The consultation. Open disson transparency and honesty. Given that these are all valuable sentiments and I couldn't agree more, would you require legislation that meant that they had to do it and that it's not a coosy level? Absolutely, because clearly they've not consulted with communities, they've consulted with Unite in the words of consulting. There's a word meaningful missing in that process. As I said, when they present a business case to us, there is very little I can actually mitigate in regards to that. All the stats are done, there's timetables of closure processes, there's maps given to me, how many people fall, all that kind of stuff is given to me, so I get this huge pile of information but I can't do anything with that. Is there an issue for us before anybody else comes in about making sure that there is an agreed framework about what they measure? I'm surprised at your description of if you don't have an account in that branch. My own branch account is where I lived 20 years ago, not the branch that I use just now. That means that I don't count. So, a legislative framework that would include measures that actually specified what you measure, what the criteria are, would that be what you were looking for? The impact on communities is not just the branch that has a huge impact, which is totally ignored by banks at the moment, the impact of not having any banks or branches in a 10, 15-mile radius for the community itself, and that is totally ignored at the moment. We heard some discussion previously about impact on businesses, impact on communities. Would you also go so far as to say that you would have a requirement or make a requirement on the banks collectively to have at least one branch left in town? That's going back to when it used to be, yes, and that worked very well. The banks didn't like it because they tended to feel that they were being piggy in the middle and stuck in a place that they didn't want it to be, but the communities respected and used the banks as much as they could, so absolutely. As I said, it has to be from day one. It cannot be six, seven, eight or nine months down the line. True engagement means that you are engaged from the beginning with your communities, with the union, but that simply does not happen at the moment, so we need legislation to force the banks into doing that. It is also about the viability of the local post office. I forget what area it was, but the RBS is a pinpointing or showing people the post office, but the post office is up for sale. They are not being exactly truthful with regard to the post office. I have direct experience of that locally, not just with the post office, but the promise of a mobile unit that a year later has still not transpired. I wonder whether I could just be cheeky enough to ask one last question. I think that the RBS AGM is today convener. I certainly heard it on the radio. Tomorrow? There you go. I'm a day in advance, so it's tomorrow. I just checked. Government ownership of ordinary shares is 71 per cent. Institutional ownership is 55 per cent. What message, if you were the Government, would you convey to RBS? Open goal for you. Well, they've done very little so far. Tomorrow's AGM, where your night will be demonstrated outside the AGM. A message to ordinary shareholders is that they've got this totally wrong. There's an arrogance about this, because while they were discussing the branch closers in Scotland with the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, they announced a further 162 branches to close in England and Wales of the Williams England organisation. Why put yourself through that pain? But there's an arrogance about that. They are going to shut branches and they do not listen. We'll come to a question from Gillian Martin. Thank you, convener, and Jackie Baillie's line of question has led very nicely on to mine. It's about what Governments can do. We've already covered quite a few things. I think that you've your asks of legislation. I'm sitting here looking on my phone at the access to banking commitment and I think that you're absolutely right. There's nothing there that says that they don't make any attempts to even say that they will consult before it's all about what they will do after they've made a decision to close. Again, we have a nice open goal for you. Given that issues around banking regulation are reserved to the UK Government, they could do to stop the situation from happening where towns and communities will be left without a last bank in town. There's a particular reference to RBS, which, as Ms Baillie has already said, are a majority shareholder by the Government. It's almost too late for our communities because what I mentioned earlier was a co-operation, at least a chat, to say that the Bank of Scotland is closed, RBS is now the only bank on the A70. Let's keep that one and maybe we shut Custorfen. I don't know why six banks find a home on the A8 and none on the A70. Is geography not part of the curriculum anymore? Tungin cheek, chairman. So you're saying that you'd like to see in regulations an acknowledgement of a geographical area and that if the area, whatever the parameters are of that, is that there is a last bank for that community? Much like Fulton MacGregor has mentioned that there's some kind of statutory obligations on the remaining bank. Yeah, it's clear in the towns where there's only one bank left. In the city then they have to look at transport routes so that a bus route from Belerno, Currie, Juniper Green, Collinton, those kind of things would make sense, that you keep a branch that can serve 20,000 people. It's effectively a small town that is now lost, its banking opportunities and it's that face-to-face bit. He got right back to the beginning when we said who affected the elderly, the disabled, the people who can't go online or won't go online and we haven't talked about those either. The TSB situation hasn't helped and all the big banks have actually got to go through that same process that TSB is still going through, so we ain't seen nothing yet, I am told. I think it is all about that. At the moment, the feeling I have is that there's a spreadsheet somewhere with numbers on it and rather than look at the impact on communities, they look at the top 100 branches who are not making money and somebody says, we'll just close them. There's no apparent observation that they are looking at communities and the impact, which is why it's very important that the community impact is to the four when they are deciding to close branches. As I said before, the banks are quite happily ignoring that at the moment and they will close and you get to the ridiculous situation, as Cliff says, that there are six banks in one area and there is zero in another, so there's no logic in how they do it and I think that we need to give them a little push and educate them in how they should be doing this and I think that we need Government to help us with that. I was noticing in the Scottish rural action submission that they suggested a universal service obligation on banking, much like the Royal Mail, whereby banks cannot close the last bank or ATM in town. That was agreed by banks a number of years ago, but they seem to have reneged it. 2010, I think, that Royal Bank actually made a statement saying that they would never close the last banking account. Am I correct? Something along those lines certainly have sympathy on, as you mentioned before, the fact that consumers have no stake in this whatsoever apart from the fact that they get notice. That's about it and they get some information that may or may not be right. Consumers and customers should be central to this. The service is provided for them and without them the service wouldn't be there, so they need to be central to this. How do you do that? I'm not sure, but having consultation much earlier before decision being taken is certainly a first step. I'm quite taken by what Alistair said about imagination. Banks are showing little imagination in terms of how they can do things differently. I'm not sure how they can compel imagination, but certainly they need a little bit of a push in the direction of being a bit more imaginative about meeting customers' needs, rather than assuming that customers don't want their services because they're not coming. We're not serving customers. How can we serve customers better, and how can we integrate in communities better? That makes business sense, but it also meets the needs of our consumers. There's an opportunity with regard to the UK Government setting a tone for this. Clearly, they've stepped back from that, saying that this is a commercial decision, but being 70 per cent owned by the British taxpayer, they had an opportunity to set the tone. I think that we've not touched on cliffs absolutely right. It failure. What happens if there is an outage again, like RBS had a few years ago, or indeed more recently, TSB, where people can't pay for things at the counter with their credit card or debit card, take money out of an ATM? That's when you need a branch, and that's when it will kick in with regard to those branches. If you live in Castle Bay, you need a seven-hour round-trip and a ferry to get to the next RBS branch. They've not looked at that. They will be failure somewhere in the IT system, whatever bank there is. If people can hack into the NHS, they will not be long before they can start hacking into the banks. A couple of years ago, there were changes in regulations to banks about separating the commercial arm of the bank with the high-street bank. Changes can be done by Government to regulations. Do you think that we've got to the point where there's a watershed moment that the UK Government has to step in? To be fair, from investment banks to retail banks, the ring-fence banks, that's all moving along this year with regard to that. The banks will come out and announce that. I have no doubt soon because there's discussions about that. We wait for what comes out of the ring-fence banks, but absolutely. The Government had an opportunity in 2015 to vote in legislation as we were discussing, and it failed. Why it failed is another question. I know that the VINCE cable was very much for it, but it failed. We have tried once, and I think that we should certainly try again. However, as I said, we did have the opportunity, 2015-16, to bring this into fruition. However, with 71 per cent ownership of the Royal Bank of Scotland, is it not the tail wagging the dog? It is beyond my comprehension why the Government hasn't done something about that already. Just on that last point, is it correct that the Westminster report doesn't recommend or set out any specific recommendations for legislation of the type that you've just been talking about? It doesn't. It's not just the UK Government that the select committee hasn't suggested that either. For their 71 per cent to be sold off, and that's why they are not wishing to rock that particular boat. You're referring to the cross-party committee or the Government or boats? The Government. The company that owns the 71 per cent of the shares, it's a kind of hands-off arrangement, as I understand it. Lynn Turner, and then we come to final questions from Jamie Halcro Johnston. The report suggests that, obviously, it's disappointing that no Government, a UK minister, appeared to respond to the questions. Yes, I see that, but I was asking specifically what recommendations the committee had given as to legislation, which is what we're talking about. No, there's nothing in respect of the report. No, thank you, thank you. Jamie Halcro Johnston. Thank you very much, convener, and welcome to the panel today. The area that I represent, Highlands and Islands, obviously, there's been a number of closures across the region, and I'm very aware of the impact that's had on quite a lot of small communities, many of the remote communities there. So can I ask a question, but can I ask it almost as a devil's advocate, because it's, as I say, I live on Orkney and we very much value our local banks and the ability to access them? There is an argument that the generation that perhaps is, particularly the older generation now, that is not tech-savvy, hasn't been brought up with computers and accessing online. That generation, until 20 years time, will be more tech-savvy, will have more experience. There will be new ways of accessing online, which make it easier, such as voice recognition and fingerprint technology. Do you think that these cuts, if they came about in those closures in 10, 15 years time, would have less impact than they perhaps have now? You're missing something that's very, very important. You're missing the face-to-face transactions, which people like. It's just part of the solution, is electronic and voice recognition, et cetera, et cetera. However, as a banker of, as I say, of 30-odd years, there's nothing more important than sitting down with your customer and actually speaking to them. Whether you do that by Skype or whatever, which is another thing now at the box, they could use Skype in the branches for mortgage advice, for example, so they could cut the staff like that. However, as I said, don't underestimate the importance of face-to-face. Irrespective of whether it's 20 years from now or not, I'm sure that people will still like to speak to people. I recognise people doing that, and from my personal banking preferences, that is the way I bank, but I'm just talking about hypothetically. We are, we, there are less and less, or fewer and fewer, sorry, kind of face-to-face interactions, and when we shop or whatever we do, we access services. It was just an interest there. I very much take the point that's been raised in terms of TSB in an area where we have slow broadband and a whole host of different issues in terms of accessing online. Trust in that online offering has to be important too. Those living with dementia, for example, will never be able to use banking, and that's why face-to-face is very, very important for these people. So, as I say, it's not a one fit all. We have to, again, think about the box. We can have branches and we can all live together. There's no reason why it can't, but they have to get rid of this rigid mindset that the banks have at the moment. If they see that the branch is not actually making a profit, then they just want to close it, it's very short-minded. I think that we have to make them recognise the impact that that can have on communities and work with them to make banks more user-friendly, because a lot of people don't like using banks now, because you go into a bank and the first thing that hits you is somebody trying to sell you something, and then you go to the teller if there is one, and they're trying to sell you something. That's not ideal either, so I think that there's improvement on both sides. My last question was fairly simple. We're seeing closures of bank branches, we're seeing closures of high street stores, we're seeing more and more business going online. Do you think that we've seen the worst of this yet, or is it going to get worse over the next few years? I was comforted by the chief executive of RBS at the Scottish Affairs Select Committee by saying that there will be no more branch closures in Scotland until 2020. Our 2020 starts on 1 January. I have no doubt that they will be looking for more branch closures in England and Wales. Currently, RBS has 753 branches, 89 of which are Scottish, the rest are all England and Wales-based. They constantly tell us that RBS serves 600 communities. I don't need to be a mathematician with regard to what comfortable number RBS would probably want to get down to with regard to its branch number. How many branches in Scotland would you see as threatened or potentially threatened? Well, I hope that there's no more, but who knows? I just hope that those 10 branches get a fair wind. Criteria is set, football is open and transparent and they are reprieved. That would be a good gesture for RBS, I think, with regards to this. Any other comments from the panel, Cliff? Just to say that some of those out-of-the-box ideas have been considered. I think that nationwide we're running a trial in Glastonbury on Skype so that they didn't have to have all their experts in one place. That seemed to me to be a model that could be used. I mentioned Metro Bank as well as something that I think could be encouraged. Community Banks, I agree, I think is something that we ought to be pushing a lot more for both the face-to-face in areas where they can't make money and to help those communities where loans can get rid of some of these HP pirates that are around. I think there are solutions there and maybe this tax that I mentioned before on buildings might just make the banks think twice about selling and look at renting because, after all, they're getting rid of the family silver by getting rid of all these buildings because many of these buildings are the iconic buildings in a town or in our high streets. There will be things, by the way, that I haven't been able to remember today. I hope I can send something through to the clerk afterwards. Is that all right, German? Yes, certainly. Any of our witnesses if they wish to submit anything further in writing, please do so. I think Keith Dries will perhaps say the last word to you then. Oh, sure, no pressure. I was thinking about the changing generations and whether in 20 years this will be less of an issue. I think that that probably is true, but I think that it's a sharp shock for a lot of people who aren't prepared for the impact of it. Certainly from the citizens advice group perspective, people still want face-to-face advice. We're demand-led, we have 5 million people come through our website but we still have something that 170,000 people come through for face-to-face advice, so we know people still require that. I think that if the banks aren't there, that's going to be a big demand that isn't going to go away overnight. It isn't just the older generations, it's the people who live in more deprived areas who have cost and knowledge barriers to using the internet and they're going to be badly affected. The people that digital access hasn't caught up with broadband are going to be impacted. I think that your point is right. In 20 years' time, this won't be such an issue, but today, over the summer and Christmas, it's going to be a huge issue. Thank you very much to all of our witnesses for coming in today. I'll now suspend the meeting and we'll move to private session.