Banks: Cheques

Lord McFall of Alcluith Excerpts

Monday 6th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sassoon]

To those noble Lords who were listening to some of my previous answers, forgive me for repeating myself: the criteria which the Payments Council itself put forward and which the previous Government welcomed back in December 2009—I echo that welcome—were that the new system had to be generally available, generally acceptable to its users and widely adopted. There also has to be, in the view of the Government, a paper-based system. Those are the criteria that have been set and we are making sure that the Payments Council sticks to them.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords—

[Lord Lea of Crondall]

My Lords—

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[Lord Sassoon]

I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing attention to that issue, which is one of the important issues that the Payments Council must take into account. I am sure that it will be listening carefully to what is being said today. If anyone wants to go on to the Payments Council website, there is probably a paper-based system for submitting suggestions to it on all these matters.

[Lord McFall of Alcluith]

My Lords—