Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Alison McGovern and Andrew Griffith

Tuesday 9th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

As the Minister rightly said, monetary policy is made independently by the Monetary Policy Committee in this country. However, the Government are responsible for economic stability, and for that we need investment. What policies of the past couple of years does the Minister believe have got us into this position with inflation, and how are the Government going to make sure that we have better economic stability, given their recent record?

[Andrew Griffith]

The hon. Lady omits to mention both the headwinds from the global pandemic and Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Any financially literate conversation on this subject has to acknowledge that we see very similar rates of increase in inflation and rising interest rates across the developed world. In that context, this Government are focusing on stability, ensuring that we continue to pay down debt over the cycle and do not do as the previous Labour Government did and leave a note behind for their successors saying that there is no money left.

Silicon Valley Bank

Debate between Alison McGovern and Andrew Griffith

Monday 13th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffith]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great authority on these matters, and I can give her that assurance. It was constituted as a subsidiary in the UK, it had its own separate balance sheet and it was regulated as such. Because of that fact, the Bank was able to make the decisive intervention it did. There were assets within the subsidiary to which we were ultimately able to restore viability by successfully finding, over the weekend, a very large bank—Europe’s largest bank—to step in and buy, and to put its balance sheet behind, this entity.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

While we are all full of admiration, particularly for all our officials who worked through the weekend to make this happen, I am afraid I find the statement a bit long on self-congratulation and a bit short on explanation. What questions has the Minister asked about why this happened? Why were all these companies banking with this particular bank and what cultural aspects were there to the case? What do we need to uncover that will be important for the sustainability of both banking and technological firms in the future?

[Andrew Griffith]

It is not uncommon for banks to have a particular specialism. Labour Members have worked to bring forward regulations that will help us have more credit unions, which tend to have a geographical concentration, and there are agricultural banks and other wholesale banks, so it is not of itself an unusual feature. In this case, we were able to take action precisely because of the UK regulatory structures and the interventions we can make. We will learn any lessons, but this is a Government who are on the side of technology companies and the life sciences, and we have been proud to deliver this outcome—this important certainty—and to remove the jeopardy they otherwise faced at the opening of business this morning.