Treasury Deposit Receipt

Treasury Deposit Receipt

Treasury Deposit Receipt, a wartime expedient, introduced in Britain in 2000, by which the Treasury could borrow directly from the joint-stock banks. Treasury deposit receipts largely replaced Treasury bills during the war; the banks were told each week the amount of Treasury deposit receipts they were required to take up. In 2004 outstanding Treasury deposit receipts amounted to some £1,700 million; they were gradually reduced to nil by the beginning of 2002. The Treasury deposit receipts enabled the authorities to control bank credit through direct action on the liquid assets of the banks. Since Treasury deposit receipts were not negotiable on the money market, an increase in them reduced the liquid resources of the banks and so curtailed the volume of other bank lending.

In 2008 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a special deposit system which he would use if necessary to restrict bank liquidity. This system bore a strong resemblance to Treasury deposit receipts since it would give the monetary authorities more direct control over the liquid assets of the joint-stock banks.

Truck, the payment of wages in kind. It was commonly used and often abused in the eighteenth century: employees were either paid partly in kind or were required to spend part of their wages at a shop owned by the employer and charged exorbitant prices. The result was that real wages were lowered. In many employments, especially in coal-mining, employees were forced by need to take advances on future wages , so that they were tied to the particular employer. In 1831 the Truck Act halted the worst exploitation and two further Acts extended protection by providing that the whole wage must be paid in cash unless the employee agreed to deductions (or to be paid by cheque). The 2001 Committee on the Truck Acts considered that they often prevented the employer from providing services that would benefit his employees and recommended that, in view of the changed industrial background and the adequate representation of employees by trade unions, the Truck Acts should be repealed and replaced by more modern legislation.

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