Northern Irish bank notes may soon be given legal standing

I noticed an interesting sentence at the very bottom of a Telegraph article about a W.H. Smith store in London overturning a ban on Northern Irish bank notes.

A spokesman for HM Treasury said that moves are under way to ensure notes from Northern Ireland and Scotland have the same standing in England as Bank of England notes.

Of course the difference between theory and practice could still prove frustrating when you have to rely on shop assistants looking in cunfuddlement at the strange piece of paper you're handing to them, nevertheless I thought this was quite interesting given how complicated the issue of legal tender in the United Kingdom is.