Bank of England (Appointment of Governor) Bill

Debate between Lord Brady of Altrincham and Stephen Hammond

Friday 6th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Hammond]

It might and it could. I accept that point. But equally it might and it might not, and it could and it could not. That is the point I am trying to make.

The hon. Gentleman’s intervention leads me into the next part of my argument. My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) says the Treasury Committee Chairman wants to see some flexibility. There is already some flexibility in the system. The Committee has pre-commencement hearings for members of the Bank’s policy committees, which include both the Governors and deputy governors. The pre-commencement hearing is a process that allows parliamentary engagement, parliamentary scrutiny of appointments and parliamentary comment on appointments, but does not allow parliamentary veto. That is an evolving process that the Government have put in place and continue to support. It is, for a variety of reasons, the right mechanism.

Turning to the question of independence, there is a real risk in respect of the credibility of the individual concerned. While I am sure that all candidates will be of the highest ability and there will be no possible suggestion in the fourth estate or anywhere else that the successful candidate had been chosen on the basis of some odd criteria or that he was the only candidate the Treasury Committee would pass, others less generous than I might think that. That would lead to a credibility gap. It is also therefore clear that the person being appointed might be open to the charge that they were being appointed for their politics, not their economics. The Governor of the Bank of England must be free of the charge of being a political candidate.

[Mr Brady]

I know my hon. Friend is keen to move to a conclusion, so I apologise for delaying him, but I am concerned that he appears to be setting a very low standard of expectation for a Committee of this House that is elected by this House. In electing the Chairman and members of the Treasury Committee, we should choose people we have confidence in to make such decisions. If we do not have that confidence, we should remove them and elect different Members.

[Stephen Hammond]

The chairman of the 1922 committee is right on one thing and wrong on the other. It is very rare that I get to speak without a time limit, so I was not necessarily intending to conclude now—although I will, of course, do so very soon. As my hon. Friend will have noted from my argument, I was not trying to impugn the Treasury Committee or its candidate. I was merely pointing out that sometimes the outside observers of this House do not share the same faith in our institutions and decisions as we do. I was raising the possibility that a newspaper might impugn the reputation of a candidate by saying he is the only available candidate because he was the only one passed by the Treasury Committee. That would create a credibility gap in respect of that candidate, not only in the operation of financial regulation, but, more importantly, in the crucial international negotiations he will have to conduct on behalf of our country.