I want to see more communities having access to banking hubs like the one in Knaresborough - Rachel Reeves

However, like many towns across our county, Knaresborough’s high street has been struggling over recent years with access to essential banking services. Data from the consumer group Which? reveals that more than 5,000 bank and building society branches have closed on Britain’s high streets since January 2015. That is the equivalent to more than 50 closing each and every month.

In Yorkshire and Humber, we have lost two thirds of bank branches over the last eight years, with only 264 remaining open. Many towns have no bank branches at all, including Todmorden in Calderdale and Wickersley in South Yorkshire.

Many banking services are moving online. However, I know as a Member of Parliament for Leeds and as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, how important access to basic banking services are for local communities and small businesses. Research by the Financial Conduct Authority found that a fifth of people with a bank account had visited a particular branch in the previous year. 10 million people are still fully reliant on cash, including some of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. And many of the businesses I speak to, especially small and medium sized companies, depend on access to basic cash services to trade.

The permanent closure of banking services is not inevitable and there is an alternative. After having no banking facilities for three years, Knaresborough is now home to one of more than 20 ‘banking hubs’ that have opened up across the UK. The hub is essentially a ‘one stop shop’ for cash services run jointly by the Post Office and several of the banks. It allows customers and businesses who have accounts with different banks and building societies to pay their bills, seek banking advice, and deposit cash and cheques.

When I visited the hub on a Friday morning, it was bustling. It was clearly a massive boost for the town. It has only been open since October, but I could already see how valuable the services were for residents and it had even decided to open over the weekend for the Christmas market. I met a small business owner from the town who told me how before the hub had opened she had to ask her mum and dad to help her run the business during the week by getting them to drive half an hour to the nearest bank branch to get out cash. It was an inconvenience, but it also came at a cost to her business. Now those cash services are on her doorstep.

As Shadow Chancellor, I want to see more communities having access to these facilities on the high street. That is why I have pledged that a future Labour government will introduce a ‘banking hub guarantee’ to revitalise Britain’s town centres. We will give new powers to the financial services watchdog to rapidly expand the opening of banking hubs to deliver at least 350 in the first five years of a Labour government. Under our plans, those high streets without any banking facilities will be at the front of the queue to ensure those most in need get the services they need.

But, expanding banking hubs is just one part of Labour’s plan to revitalise our high streets. After 13 years of Conservative government, our town centres are worse off. For too many communities the decline of the high street has become a symptom of national decline. I do not believe this decline has to be inevitable. There can be – and there needs to be – change, with a renewed effort to turn this situation around. I want to bring customers and businesses back to the high street, so they are once again a source of pride for local communities.

That does take national leadership and it is why I have pledged that a future Labour government will scrap business rates and replace it with a system that is fairer on bricks and mortar businesses. We will make our town centres safer by introducing new police patrols to tackle anti-social behaviour. And we will make sure small business owners and their staff are safer by creating a new specific offence of assault against retail workers. This a plan that will be good for local communities, good for the high street and good for our national economy. It is part of my commitment – and Keir Starmer’s commitment – to deliver the change our country needs and to make working people better off. And it is a commitment we will take to the country at the next general election.

Finally, as this will likely be my last column for the Yorkshire Post of the year, I would like to take this opportunity to with you and your families a very happy Christmas – and a prosperous new year.

Rachel Reeves is MP for Leeds West and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.