§ 60. Mr. Stokesasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what objections there now are which make it undesirable to disclose the operations of the Exchange Equalisation Account; and whether he will state who, outside His Majesty's Treasury, has knowledge of these operations.
§ Sir S. CrippsOperations of the Exchange Equalisation Account include the general business of meeting the daily requirements of the community, the transactions carried out with foreign central banks, which could in any case not be disclosed without the consent of the other parties to the transactions, and the day-to-day management of the central reserves of the sterling area. I announce, at the end of each quarter, the amounts of our gold and dollar holdings. I do not consider it to be in the public interest to publish these operations in greater detail. The details of operations undertaken by the Account are known only to His Majesty's Treasury and to the Bank of England who are responsible to His Majesty's Treasury for the management of the Exchange Equalisation Account.