Bank of England

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his support for the appointment. We have now united all points on the spectrum.

The Governor of the Bank will chair the Financial Policy Committee, the body that will be responsible for macro-prudential regulation. In other words, he will set overall guidance on issues such as capital and liquidity, about which I know my right hon. Friend has spoken powerfully. Any decision on the framework of the inflation-targeting regime and the like will be made by the elected Government and not by the Governor of the Bank.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

I am sure that this is a question that the Chancellor has considered. Will he explain how Mr Carney will handle any conflicts of interest that arise during the period between now and his taking up his post in London?

[Mr Osborne]

There should not be any conflicts of interest, because he is very clearly the Governor of the central Bank of Canada, will remain so until the end of May, and will fight Canada’s corner as we would expect him to do. However, he is also the chair of the Financial Stability Board, of which we are a member. He is already heavily involved in international financial regulation and in decisions that have a real impact on our financial services. Moreover, Canada is a G7 country, and is probably one of our closest allies: it is difficult to think of a closer ally than Canada. We already work incredibly closely with the Canadians. Incidentally, the fact that we co-ordinated the press conference in Ottawa and the statement in the House of Commons today and the news did not leak in advance shows that the two Governments work together and trust each other.