Speeches by Rigby.

“It is difficult to say.”

“We do, yes. It is really important to think about the base we are starting from here. One of the reasons why we want to build up that retail investment culture is that at the moment the UK has the lowest level of retail investment in the G7, so people are missing out on the ability to make their money work harder for t…”

“I am.”

“No. We have been open about the fact that we are looking at the right balance of cash and stocks within ISAs, but decisions of that nature will be taken by the Chancellor in the Budget.”

“Sure—I will canter through them. The second pillar is about our global leadership and partnerships that we are able to develop with other countries as a result of that. The third is about innovation and fintech leadership. The fourth is our retail investment campaign, because we want to build up a culture of retail inv…”

“It is a pleasure to be here. May I congratulate the new members who have been recently elected to this Committee? You were always very clear, Chair, that this is the most prestigious Committee to be on. I am sorry, in one respect, that I am no longer on it. You asked about my priorities. My core priority is to deliver …”

“I am indeed aware of this issue. I know that it affects people in my hon. Friend’s constituency and in plenty of other Members’ constituencies, too. I also know how concerned he and other Members are about it. It is for the Financial Conduct Authority to consider whether it is appropriate to take any further steps, but…”

“I am aware of the scheme that the right hon. Member talks about. He will appreciate that I cannot pre-empt the launch of the strategy tomorrow, nor indeed the Budget, but I would be more than happy to meet him to talk about it in more detail.”

“My hon. Friend raises a really important point. As part of developing the strategy, the Government have engaged with Financial Inclusion Committee members and other organisations on how to measure the impact of the strategy, and indeed to drive its delivery. The strategy’s implementation will be reviewed two years from…”

“I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her years of work to further financial inclusion both during her time here and prior to Parliament. This is a timely question, because tomorrow we will publish the Government’s financial inclusion strategy, which sets out an ambitious programme of measures to improve financial inclus…”

“Where it is appropriate to do so—indeed, it is very often appropriate to do so—we will blame the Conservative party for the state of the country, and it is appropriate to do so here. On the criteria that Link uses for banking hubs, I will remind the hon. Gentleman that, in relation to the access to cash regime, that wa…”

“My hon. Friend is well versed in all these areas, and has done considerable work in this regard. As I have said, the banks play a role in providing access to cash, for instance via post office banking services.”

“We recognise the important role that post offices, in particular, play in providing essential banking services as well as banking hubs. Decisions about which services are available at post offices—such as cheque deposits—are made by banks as part of their commercial arrangements. I should emphasise that customers conti…”

“The Government understand the importance of in-person banking to communities, and we are working closely with industry to roll out 350 banking hubs across the United Kingdom. More than 240 hubs have been announced so far, and more than 180 are already open. I know that that includes two in the hon. Member’s constituenc…”

“There is market sensitivity as well as commercial sensitivity.”

“It sounds like I will.”

“I will make this as an overarching comment for everything in the strategy, and there is a timeline of deliverables at the back of it: I am determined to deliver this as quickly as is feasible, because I recognise the importance to the wider economy and to the point we were just making about the scale of international c…”

“I am keener than anyone to ensure we get parliamentary time for this, and indeed to make all of these reforms a priority.”

“I am wary of going near parliamentary time.”

“I suspect when we bring forward the plans, including from a structural and other point of view.”