Tory MPs demand review of Bank of England independence

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. One of the MPs, Marcus Fysh, described the Bank’s quantitative easing policy as a “nightmare” and said it had been “far wider of the mark on controlling inflation than other central banks around the world”. He added: “If we’re going to hand the keys to our monetary policy to the Bank of England, it’s vital there’s rigorous accountability and that it demonstrates monetary expertise.” Ed Barker, chief executive of Conservative Way Forward, said institutions must be “held to account for their performance” on inflation. “Why one of the world’s oldest central banks is ignoring the Fed and the ECB and adopting the practice of the central banks of Albania and Azerbaijan is beyond me.” A spokesperson for the Bank of England said: “Up until September 2022, the Bank sent £123.9 billion to HM Treasury, and it was always recognised that payments would reverse in future. However, it was always expected that losses would be incurred when this was unwound, and any future gains or losses are highly uncertain.” The Treasury also disputed some of the claims made in the Conservative Way Forward report, saying the central banks of New Zealand and Sweden were also pursuing a similar QT programme, and ending the scheme would not “save” money that the Government could spend elsewhere, only push the losses back beyond the five years the OBR forecasts for.