§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the paper on prices read by the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England to the City of London branch of the Institute of Directors on 13 December 1992 represents Government policy.
§ Mr. NelsonAs the Deputy Governor stated in his speech on 13 December 1993, we must regain the attitudes and expectations of a non inflationary climate.
It is the task of monetary policy to produce such a climate. Since October 1992, the Government have had an explicit inflation objective. The aim is to keep inflation—as measured by the RPI excluding mortgage interest payments—in the range 1 to 4 per cent. and to bring it down to the lower half of the range by the end of the present Parliament. In November, underlying inflation was 2.3 per cent. and it has been lower than 3 per cent. for 14 months, the first time inflation has been this low for this long since 1961.