I am Andrew Malecki. To my left is Steve Thomas who is our Head of Security. Steve has appeared before in front of this Committee in his role as the chairman of the security group for e-Centre. To the far left is Rob Close, who is from Barclays Bank. In your evidence, as one would expect, you say that confidence in payment systems in the UK is high.
Payment systems are of course only one part of the chain in electronic commerce.
So we do not need legislation in relation to confidence in payment systems. We have already heard this morning that in fact the main thrust of the Bill, which is talking about giving legal admissibility to digital signatures may indeed already be covered under English common law. I am not a legal expert, but I certainly support the view that there appears to be enough confusion around in the marketplace that promoting specific legal validity of digital signatures is going to help engender confidence in their use. That is the main value of the Bill. It is a particular source of resentment to me that I seem to hand over interest to the shareholders of whatever banks are involved for an undue length of time.