The UK Parliament has announced that the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords (Parliament's upper house) will meet on Tuesday, 19 July, to discuss blockchain and distributed ledger technology.
“The Economic Affairs Committee takes evidence from the Bank of England, Imperial College London, Z/Yen Group Limited, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Digital Asset and 11:FS for its one-off inquiry into distributed ledger or blockchain technology”, the announcement reads.
Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor, Monetary Policy, Bank of England, is expected to speak at the meeting. In addition, the committee will also hear testimonies from a number of academics and blockchain industry representatives including Blythe Masters, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Asset Holdings; Simon Taylor, Co-Founder / Director of Blockchain, 11:FS; Gresham College professor of commerce Michael Mainelli; Imperial College Centre for Cryptocurrency Research associate director Dr Catherine Mulligan; and PwC transformation and assurance director Lord Spens.
The committee will discuss several blockchain-related issues such as the potential applications of the technology for the government, including whether it could be used to collect taxes or pay benefits, the regulation of the technology.
The announcement also states that the committee will also discuss “What happens if the technology goes wrong?” and “Could blockchain be used to create a central bank digital currency?”.
Major central banks such as the Reserve Bank of Australia and the People’s Bank of China have expressed their interest in developing a nationalized digital currency. The latest announcement suggests that the UK is also interested in the concept and making efforts to explore the possibility.
