This petition was submitted during the 2017-2019 parliament
Rejected petition Stop the state owned Royal Bank of Scotland from closing high-street banks.
The British Government owns the majority of shares in RBS. The proposed closure of high-street banks across the country will harm local businesses and many people in our communities who are unable to use internet banking. Parliament should stop these bank closures on behalf of British citizens.
More details
Recently banks have had to advise their customers to visit local branches when their internet based service went down; there are people living with disabilities that make internet banking inaccessible to them; and small to medium enterprises such as local shops have to bank their taking regularly. The loss of what are the last high street banks in some communities will seriously harm those people and businesses.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.
The decision to close branches is a commercial and operational decision for a bank, and not the responsibility of the UK Government or Parliament.
You may be interested to know that the House of Commons debated the general issue of bank branch closures in June 2016. You can read the debate here: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-06-30/debates/A32A8165-29DE-4FE1-A93F-E88310B81E5C/BankBranchClosures
You can find out more about the recent announcements about branch closures and the banking industry's response in this House of Commons Library briefing paper:
https://researchbriefings.intranet.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN00385
The Scottish Affairs Committee asked RBS about its branch closures. You can find out more here:
You could start a new petition asking the House of Commons to debate the issue of local bank branch closures again, if that's what you want to happen.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.