BOE’s Pill Hits Back Over Attacks on UK Economic Institutions

Sep 27, 2022

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(Bloomberg) -- Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill urged the government to support Britain’s economic institutions, after a series of political attacks on the central bank, the fiscal watchdog and the Treasury.

“It is crucial that the underlying macro policy institutional framework remain credible,” Pill said on Tuesday. “It is important that all actors in that are both respected in terms of what their responsibility is and their objective and intentions are.”

Pill was speaking after new Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng’s sweeping plan of tax cuts, announced Friday, sparked a two-day rout in UK assets that pushed the pound to a record low against the dollar and sent government bond yields spiraling higher. 

Read More: BOE’s Pill Sees Need for Significant Response to UK Tax Cuts (2)

The “mini-budget” was the latest in a series of attacks on economic orthodoxy from Liz Truss’s weeks-old government, which has also seen the firing of the Treasury’s top civil servant, criticism of the BOE over inflation and the apparent sidelining of government’s fiscal watchdog.

The Treasury sought to restore confidence on Monday, saying it would publish a medium-term fiscal plan on Nov. 23, alongside a forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility. Kwarteng declined to involve the OBR in last week’s statement.

Pill said those moves were encouraging, welcoming the full “external independent scrutiny” of the OBR.

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