Select committee: Treasury Committee
Recommendation 20
Fifth Report - Quantitative Tightening
Published 7 Feb 2024
Paragraph 83
Addressed to HM Treasury
Treasury Committee Quantitative tightening All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
The Bank and Treasury should clarify the future arrangements for the steady-state level of reserves on the Bank’s balance sheet as soon as possible, including the future of QT at that point, the assets that will be used to back reserves, the remuneration of those reserves, and the implications for the Bank’s profits and losses and the Treasury indemnity.
From: Treasury Committee, Fifth Report - Quantitative Tightening (HC 219), paragraph 83, 7 February 2024
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 18 April 2024 (deadline 7 April 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Treasury, the Bank of England and the Debt Management Office each responded separately, and the Committee records that none of its recommendations has been fully accepted.
- The Treasury says evaluating the overall value for money of monetary policy decisions on an ongoing basis "would not support" the MPC's independence, but that it keeps the design of the framework "under review".
- On the debt metric, the Treasury's position is that "substantial fiscal costs should not be excluded"; it says fiscal rules are "not a matter for the Bank of England".
- The Bank says a deferred asset accounting approach "would not be feasible", and that changing the accounting treatment "would not alter the underlying public sector impacts" of QE or QT.
- The Bank is "working at pace to launch an initial version" of a lending facility for insurance companies and pension funds, and says its next MPC QT review is in September.