Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (Hansard, 18 June 1997)

§ Mr. Tyrie
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if verbatim minutes of the monetary committee of the Bank of England will be published; and if individual members of the committee will be permitted to make dissenting statements prior to their publication. [3764]

§ Mrs. Liddell
[holding answer 16 June 1997]: The monetary policy committee has agreed that the minutes will not be a verbatim record of the discussion. The committee is considering what guidelines its members should adopt in their public comments.

§ Ms Kelly
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if non-voting members will be permitted to take part in the deliberations of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. [4242]

§ Mrs. Liddell
The Treasury representative on the Monetary Policy Committee can take part in the discussion, but not in the decision on interest rates.
230W

§ Ms Kelly
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if the minutes of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee will attribute to individual members of the Committee the comments made by them during the Committee's discussions; and after what interval he proposes that the minutes will be published. [3054]

§ Mrs. Liddell
The votes of individual members will be recorded, and if there are dissenting votes the reasons for them will be attributed. The minutes will be published within six weeks of each meeting.

§ Mr. Green
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how he will measure the success of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee in meeting his inflation target. [3322]

§ Mrs. Liddell
The Chancellor wrote to the Governor of the Bank of England setting out the remit for the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee on June 12. A copy of the remit can be obtained from the House of Commons Library.

§ Mr. Mitchell
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will invite hon. Members to make representations to the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. [3195)

§ Mrs. Liddell
The new arrangements will ensure that the Monetary Policy Committee is fully accountable for its interest rate decisions to the Government, Parliament and the people. It will be accountable to Parliament through the Treasury Select Committee, which will have the opportunity to examine the Bank's performance on monetary policy on a regular basis.

§ Mr. Maples
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the performance of the Bank of England in managing the Government's cash reserves. [3240]

§ Mrs. Liddell
Currently, the Government's cash management is handled by the Bank of England as a part of its money market operations by which short-term interest rates are influenced. It is therefore difficult to separate the costs of cash management from the costs of administering monetary policy. However, the total cash needs of Government are automatically managed through coordination of the Exchequer's accounts at the Bank to minimise the amount of gross overnight borrowing required by Government.