West Cornwall MP Derek Thomas is one of 16 Conservative MPs who is urging the Chancellor to use the budget to help ensure that everyone has ready access to cash in the face of increasing ATM closures and loss of high street banks.
Along with the Association of Convenience Stores, British Retail Consortium, Federation of Small Businesses, Positive Money and Responsible Finance, the MPs have written to the Rt Hon Rishi Sunak MP urging him to announce a series of measures in the Budget.
These include:
- Reverse the arbitrary cuts to LINK interchange fees paid by banks to fund the network
- Exempt free-to-use ATMs from business rates bills
- Recognise that ATMs are the only infrastructure through which to guarantee national access to cash
Mr Thomas said: “Access to cash is absolutely vital for individuals, families and businesses in a largely rural area like West Cornwall.
“Cutting down on the number of cash dispensers - estimated at around 500 closures every month - is causing real hardship and creating unnecessary extra expense because of the distance people have to travel to reach a machine.
“In some cases they then face transaction charges to access their own money. All this has happened at a time when bank branches have been closed - along with their own dispensers.
“The Government must ensure there is a reliable free-to-use national network of cash machines and the measures we are calling for would help to address the situation."
