Andrew Gwynne – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Andrew Gwynne on 2015-10-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, if he will undertake a feasibility study on establishing a credit union open to British military personnel; and if he will make a statement.

Mr Philip Dunne

On 8 December 2014, the then Minister for Defence Personnel and Veterans (Anna Soubry) fully endorsed the expansion of existing, strong Credit Unions to the Armed Forces community and stated that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) was working to bring this about. The Minister also advised that the MOD’s payroll provider was working with officials to scope and cost payroll deductions for a Credit Union.

The work on scoping payroll deductions has now been concluded successfully and we have now established a facility where Credit Union services are available to Armed Forces personnel via payroll deductions; the formal launch of this service took place on 15 October 2015.

The three chosen Credit Unions are PlaneSaver Credit Union, London Mutual Credit Union and Police Credit Union trading as Serve and Protect. This facility will provide UK Armed Forces personnel with access to dependable savings facilities and safe affordable loans.

An internal communication has been issued across the Department to alert Service personnel of this new facility.