An attempt is to be made at Westminster to make it legally binding for shops and businesses in England to accept Scottish banknotes.
At the moment traders south of the border can refuse to take such notes.
Never mind shops, outside London you'll find that many banks are happier to change forints or hryvnias than Scottish or N.irish notes.
The present position:
The Bank of England provides the following answer to the question of whether or not Scottish and Northern Irish banknotes are legal tender:
"In short ‘No’ these notes are not legal tender; only Bank of England notes are legal tender but only in England and Wales.
The term legal tender does not in itself govern the acceptability of banknotes in transactions. Whether or not notes have legal tender status, their acceptability as a means of payment is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved."
This is the kind of anomaly that our Unionist MPs whould be getting their teeth into:
A private member's bill is being launched in the Commons by Shadow Scottish Secretary David Mundell.
And shouldn't Northern Irish notes be also included in this bill?
5 comments:
If anything it's more difficult to pass off NI bank notes in Scotland than Scottish bank notes in England. There's a certain grand-scale hypocrisy there.
But more significantly, should it not be down to the trader to decide what he accepts as payment and what he doesn't? I certainly think so. There are perfectly legitimate reasons for rejecting more obscure private notes though: they are, after all, unfamiliar to many and could be imitation...
About two years ago the Bank of England was reviewing the whole position of Scottish and NI banks printing their own bank-notes and the technicalities surrounding this apparent anomaly.
I contacted the Bank of England, telling them that, in my opinion, this ancient Right ought to be repealed in Parliament and that B/E notes were quite acceptable throughout the UK - certainly for me.
As an Anglophile, I prefer Bank of England bank-notes to the extent that I get my cask from Halifax cash machines.
Tim
Currency quote
NI man in english pub, hands over £20 NI note and says "Don't worry it is sterling It says so on it." Barmaid to Boss "Sam do we take Sterling?"
Good one;)
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