Greg Knight, MP for East Yorkshire is backing calls from the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee for banks to improve and strengthen cheque payments and eliminate unnecessary delays in cheque processing.

The call follows a successful campaign by Mr Knight and others to pressure the Payments Council to scrap their plans to abolish cheques over the next few years.

Mr Knight has joined calls for the Council itself to be overhauled. He said, “The Payments Council has power to make decisions that affect millions of people. However, it currently has no effective public accountability and urgently needs reform, preferably by it having some customer representatives involved in their decision-making”.

Mr Knight added, “As a result of a good campaign, the Payments Council were forced to back-peddle on their decision to scrap cheques, but unless there is reform there is a danger that they could approve decisions to gradually ‘run down’ the cheque by stealth”.

East Yorkshire MP Greg Knight has welcomed the announcement by British banks that they will now abandon their plan to abolish the use of cheques.

The UK Payments Council, which represents the major banks, said two years ago that cheques were to be abolished from 2018.

Mr Knight argued that the continuing use of cheques was vital for small clubs and voluntary associations, and that despite the emergence of electronic banking, scrapping the cheque would be totally unacceptable.

In May this year, the Treasury Committee reopened its inquiry to look again at the effects of scrapping cheques and today, following pressure from Mr Knight and other MPs, the Payments Council has now given in and announced that banks will offer cheques ‘as long as customers need them’.

Mr Knight said: ‘I am delighted by today’s announcement. Axing the cheque was clearly in nobody’s interest other than penny-pinching banks. It would have impacted us all, but the greatest victims would have been the elderly, the vulnerable, and many voluntary organisations and sporting clubs.’

Mr Knight added: ‘I am pleased the banks appear to have finally seen sense on this issue.’

East Yorkshire MP Greg Knight has accused British banks of attempting to ‘ride roughshod’ over millions of vulnerable people, small firms and sporting clubs who rely on cheques, by pressing ahead with plans to abolish them.

Mr Knight said he was delighted that the powerful Commons Treasury Select Committee is to reopen its inquiry into the future of cheques in the light of public concern over the banks’ plans to phase them out by 2018.

The UK Payments Council, which is made up of the major banks, announced in 2009 that cheques would no longer be used after October 2018. But Mr Knight said he remained ‘wholly unconvinced by the Council’s argument that cheques were in terminal decline.’

Mr Knight wants the Payments Council to drop its target date of 2018 and monitor the continuing use of cheques which, despite the emergence of electronic banking, remain vital for small clubs, sporting associations and voluntary groups.

Mr Knight added: ‘There are many vulnerable groups that will be affected by axing the cheque. As well as small businesses, the elderly and those without access to card payment technology will also be disadvantaged. It will hit many small clubs who collect their membership subscriptions by cheque and do not have the facility to accept credit card payments. The banks themselves should certainly not be the people who make this decision because it is in their interest to scrap the cheque in favour of the much easier electronic transfer.’

The Treasury Committee’s reopened inquiry will look at the disadvantages of abolishing cheques and the effect it will have on the public if it goes ahead.

In addition to complaints from Mr Knight and other MPs, the charity Age UK has welcomed the Treasury Committee’s decision.

East Yorkshire MP Greg Knight is supporting a cross party House of Commons motion expressing concern at plans by high street banks to scrap cheques.

Mr Knight said, “Cheques have been in use for over 300 years, but have been in decline since 1990 with the rise of electronic banking.  Now major banks, represented by the Payments Council, say they will scrap the cheque book in the next few years.”

Mr Knight added, “Cheques play a crucial role for providing payments to sole traders, small businesses, clubs, charities and schools.  The cheque is far from dead.  The average business in Britain receives over 1,000 cheques a year and around 4 million cheques are written every single day. ”

Mr Knight dismissed as “fatuitous” suggestions from the banks that one reason for scrapping cheques was the number of trees cut down to produce the paper for them.

“Not everyone wants to take part in electronic banking and many pensioners, and others who do not use the internet, should not be prevented from using this long established method of payment just because it is now more profitable for bankers who are behaving selfishly on this issue, to move money electronically” said Mr Knight.

He concluded, “Banks exist for their customers…..Not the other way around”.