Bank of England to keep animal fat £5 notes

The £5 plastic bank notes. Credit: Joe Giddens/PA Wire/PA Images

The Bank of England has said that it will keep the new £5 plastic note in circulation and issue a new £10 polymer note as planned, despite concerns from activists over traces of animal fats.

A petition against the use of animal fat in the notes, which has been signed by more than 130,000 people, was set up by Doug Maw, a vegan from Keswick.

He was invited to visit the Bank, to outline his concerns, last month.

However, the central bank has now said that while it had carefully considered alternative options - like destroying, reprinting and delaying the issue of the £10 note - these alternatives would be costly and compromise new anti-counterfeit measures.

The petition on change.org Credit: Change.org

Fury among vegetarians and vegans erupted following confirmation by the Bank that the notes contained tallow back in November.

More than 134,000 people have signed a petition against its use, with activists advocating for a more suitable alternative.

However, the Bank said it has held off signing supply contracts for the £20 polymer note, which is due to be released in 2020, in order to weigh plant-based substitutes like coconut oil or palm oil.

It is launching a public consultation and will make a final decision on how £20 notes - and future runs of the £5 and £10 notes - will be manufactured by summer 2017.

The Bank said it would cost too much to replace the notes. Credit: PA

The Bank said it would have incurred major costs if it decided to destroy and reprint existing notes.

It has already spent £24 million on printing 275 million new £10 polymer notes since production began in August.

That is on top of the £46 million spent on printing the £5 note.

Reprinting those notes using new materials would mean incurring those costs again, while destruction of those notes would cost a further £50,000.

"The Bank works hard to ensure that the public has enough secure notes to use in daily life and destroying the hundreds of millions of notes already printed would put this at risk," the Bank said in its report.

It stressed it would not be able to guarantee "sufficient stock" of paper notes if it were to destroy the polymer notes.

"Delaying the issuance of the polymer £10 would also delay the benefits of the increased counterfeit resilience of polymer being achieved for the Bank and the public."