There’s no point mourning the death of cash

‘Cash is king,’ grinned the bartender as he handed me two pints of dry cider at a music festival I attended several summers ago. Since I’d paid in cold, hard cash, he’d agreed to a discount suspiciously in line with VAT. With nearby food vendors struggling to connect their payment terminals to the internet and fellow festival-goers queuing for cash, I gladly handed over the tenner and glugged down the goods.

Such a bargain is not uncommon. I’ve seen the odd hospitality worker offer a cash discount so they can pocket the takings themselves. After a removal quote once went awry, a surly van man demanded extra cash to shift my piano. Newsagents, meanwhile, tend to set a minimum card payment lest they get scalped on fee charges.

It’s such transactions – minus, I suppose, the tax dodging and petty theft – that the Treasury Committee is hoping to encourage.