Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government on what grounds, and on whose authority, the National Savings and Investments Agency makes a decision to dishonour a cheque.

National Savings and Investments (NS&I) comply with the law relating to cheques. There are several circumstances in which NS&I would reject a cheque. These include the cheque being unsigned by the customer, out of date, or defaced. The Director of Savings, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of NS&I, is the authority responsible for administering this policy.

Premium Bond prize warrants are legally similar to cheques. As with cheques, they can be rejected if a duplicate has been issued. Due to an administrative error, a number of duplicate Premium Bond prize warrants were issued to customers in the October 2019 prize draw. NS&I have since updated their processes to prevent this error occurring in future prize draws.