Less than 100 days left to use paper £20 and £50 notes, says Bank of England

People have just 100 days left to use the paper £20 and £50 banknotes remaining in circulation, the Bank of England has said. The last day the notes will have legal tender status is September 30, 2022. The Bank is encouraging anyone who still has them to use them or deposit them at their bank or a post office before the end of September.

While the majority of paper £20 and £50 banknotes in circulation have been replaced with new polymer versions, there are still more than £6bn of paper £20 notes featuring economist Adam Smith, and more than £8bn of paper £50 banknotes featuring entrepreneur Matthew Boulton and engineer James Watt, in circulation.

That is more than 300m individual £20 banknotes, and 160m paper £50 banknotes.

It is a year since the Bank first issued the polymer £50 banknote featuring Bletchley Park codebreaker and scientist Alan Turing. The Turing 50 completed the Bank’s “family” of polymer notes, with all of its denominations – 5, 10, 20 and 50 – now printed on polymer.

Plastic notes have been replacing paper versions since 2016 when the new £5 was rolled out. They have been designed to be more secure.

The Bank of England’s chief cashier, Sarah John, said: “Changing our banknotes from paper to polymer over recent years has been an important development, because it makes them more difficult to counterfeit, and means they are more durable.

According to John, the majority of paper banknotes have now been taken out of circulation, but a significant number remain in the economy, so they’re asking people to check if they have any at home. For the next 100 days, these can still be used or deposited at your bank in the normal way.

ALAN Turing was asked to join the Government Codes and Cypher School, a code-breaking organisation which is now known as GCHQ. The organisation moved to Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, which became the top secret home of Britain’s code breakers. He was based in the famous Hut 8 and his most notable achievement at Bletchley was cracking the Germans’ “Enigma” code.

The Enigma was a machine used by the German armed forces to send encrypted messages securely.

Together with fellow code-breaker Gordon Welchman, developed a machine called the Bombe which from late 1940 was decoding all messages sent by the Enigma machines.

Turing’s team also cracked complex German naval signals in 1941, contributing to Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.

His other work included developing a machine to encode and decode voice communications.

Despite his monumental help with the national effort in WWII, he was charged over homosexual activity in 1952. He pleaded for chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones, which made him impotent. He was also barred from continuing his work with GCHQ.

The new note will feature a photo of him taken in 1951 by Elliott & Fry, alongside a table of a mathematical formula. Underneath the picture of Mr Turing is a quote from him, saying: “This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be.”