Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps his Department is taking to facilitate the acceptance of cash across the UK.

The government recognises that, to support people’s ability to continue to transact using cash, businesses need reasonable access to cash deposit facilities to support them to keep accepting cash.

The government therefore legislated through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to establish the Financial Conduct Authority as the lead regulator for access to cash and provide it with responsibility and powers to seek to ensure reasonable provision of cash withdrawal and deposit facilities.

The government considers that this legislation will support organisations, including local businesses, to continue accepting cash by ensuring that they have reasonable access to cash deposit facilities.