Internet Upload

Yes, any bytes going out of your device is Uploading.

It will be downloading a lot more than it is uploading though?

All you're uploading is basically your username and password, and the fact that you're clicking on certain links etc.

Reason i ask is that i bought a new laptop for my Dad. Whenever he tries to log into internet banking and sometimes facebook the laptop freezes. It also freezes at other random times but always internet banking. His old laptop continues to work fine. I was thinking it could maybe be the upload speed as this is showing as 0.00Mb/s

Does the entire laptop freeze or just the browser?
What do you mean freeze, have to hard reset it?
An internet banking site I used to use used to be very badly done and not work in all browsers :(

YOu can test upload/download (but it's incredibly unlikely this is the cause) on an internet speed checker that will upload a lot and tell you what the speed is.

There is the chance of course you have internet security software (... or the opposite) that sees the bank and does something stupid, if it's a total freeze that's likely.

Or the bank site uses a lot of CPU and that overheats it - open task manager. Does it do it if you do anything else that uses a lot of cpu?

On his network both Lloyds and Santander make the browser freeze and eventually the message "page cannot be displayed" The pc then needs to be restarted to get going.

On my network both Lloyds and Santander work fine.

Norton is on the laptop but it is also on the old laptop which continues to work fine. As the old laptop still works ok i'm presuming this proves the upload speed is ok?

Well a computer freezing is different to a browser freeze.

I'd be inclined to think (assuming no virus!) you have pre installed security software or downloaded bank security software and it's not wanting to play.
Is there something like "CompanyX internet security suite" etc installed?

Look at settings.

Try a different browser like Firefox.

Open up a command prompt (run menu cmd)
and type
ping www.nameofbank.co.uk
[return]

does that work?

Some of this security software even integrates with the browser. I had issues with the free AVG integration year ago when I used it, slowing sites and errors.