Lords Economic Affairs Committee to quiz Bank of England Governor Mark Carey
The House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee will next week hold its annual evidence session with the Governor of the Bank of England. This will be the first time Dr Mark Carney, the Bank's new Governor, will appear before the Committee.
Areas the Committee will cover with Dr Carney include:
- What is his assessment of the UK's medium term economic prospects?
- Whether the realities of serving as Governor of the Bank of England have matched his expectations and what lessons he is applying that he learnt from his time as Governor of the Bank of Canada.
- How he expects his introduction of forward guidance on monetary policy (announcing that interest rates would not change while unemployment remains above 7%) to influence economic behaviour?
- Is there a risk that using unemployment as the signal to raise interest rates could be too late for effective control of inflation?
- Is there a conflict between the Bank's scrapping of the Funding for Lending scheme which supported mortgage lending and the expansion of the government's Help to Buy scheme?
- Would the Bank's financial stability objective be easier to meet if there was a full separation between retail and investment banking?
- Should bankers be subject to full professional standards in the same way as doctors and lawyers?
- What is his view on Scottish Government's aim set out in its White Paper to retain sterling as the currency of an independent Scotland?
The evidence session will start at 3:35pm on Tuesday 17 December in Committee Room 1 of the House of Lords.
