Winnings held up in Bonds bungle

Hundreds of thousands of Premium Bonds winners have received cheques two weeks late after a printing error.

Cheques for under-16 winners have to be made out to their parents. But officials found a batch of January cheques had been printed with the names of both the young winners and a parent, making the payments invalid.

The mistake was not spotted until all the cheques were sealed in envelopes, and the whole batch had to be destroyed and reprinted.

A National Savings spokesman said it was a "one-off" problem.