Speeches by Grady.

“Deputy governor, I believe you mentioned that you are a professional catastrophiser—you should try being a Labour MP with two teenage children. You also said the thing that keeps you awake at night is the likelihood of a number of risks crystallising at the same time: major macroeconomic shock, confidence in private cr…”

““Should be” means they probably are, and the fact that you are working with them suggests to me that the Bank of England is not entirely content yet, but people are. There is a difference between “should be” and “are”, isn’t there? Sorry to nit-pick.”

“I think you mentioned, deputy governor, that one of the reasons to sell down the Bank’s holdings of gilts is to give more headroom to deal with financial instability in the future. Another tool in the locker is interest rates, but we have a less benign inflation environment. At the same time, Government finances are st…”

“There is a lot of work to look at this. One of the themes from previous discussions is the need to understand much more about private credit, which probably requires international solutions. Are we ahead of the curve on that, or do you feel that we have some catching up to do and actually we all need to roll our sleeve…”

“Are you content with the reactions of the financial institutions? Do you feel that they are derisking sufficiently and taking steps that you would wish them to take?”

“Can I ask just one question? It may be a daft question. When I read people like Professor Nick Butler, formerly of BP, and Professor Birol of the International Energy Agency commentating in the FT, they suggest that reserves are actually becoming very tight and that we are sailing into one of the biggest energy crises …”

“Thank you very much, deputy governor.”

“A final question from me. We have mentioned Claude Mythos and developments in AI. Let’s say I was out in the Calton in my constituency on Saturday, and someone asked, “What’s all this AI and Claude Mythos? What’s the risk to me?”. Are you seeing a risk to things like payment systems—a shock that could affect people wit…”

“That is very helpful. I just want a quick answer to this. It strikes me that you would have the publication of the report and the government response, which would set out scenarios to make the fiscal position sustainable in the long run. Perhaps it is quite attractive to have the OBR mark those scenarios, at least to s…”

“To pick you up on that, you are suggesting as well a proper report and analysis of how the Government’s promises to get debt down or achieve a greater fiscal sustainability have actually out-turned in practice. Focus on that too, so that there is an element of accountability after a certain number of years that is form…”

“Could the Government response itself be marked in some way by the OBR? What if the Government were required to set out what they believe are sensible measures to ensure that the public finances are sustainable in the long run, and the OBR then got to mark or comment on them in some way? That would not necessarily be a …”

“What about a two-day or a one-day debate on fiscal sustainability following your report and that becoming mandatory?”

“If we were to summarise this chapter of evidence, it is summed up by Professor Elmendorf’s phrase: you can take a horse to water. The difference between the Netherlands system and the US system or our system is that not only is a horse taken to water, but it must drink as part of that pre-election and post-election coa…”

“I know; I know.”

“Professor Miles earlier mentioned Soviet forecasts. Turning to the fiscal risks and sustainability report, you will have heard my questioning earlier, which was really aimed at getting some glasnost and a potential menu of perestroika for the long-term sustainability of the public finances. In your long-term forecast, …”

“Do you make policy recommendations or choices?”

“The Government provided a pretty short response to this report. Do you see merit in a longer and more comprehensive response to your very good report, which involves a lot of hard work?”

“This shocking overspend is equivalent to more than £1,000 per household in the United Kingdom. Families in my constituency and across Britain work very hard to earn money to pay the bills and to try to have a reasonable standard of living. HS2 was meant to bring considerable benefits to the north of England and to Scot…”

“I have one final question, then. In my humble opinion as a politician, we have a long-term sustainability of public finances issue that we do need to start facing up to. You are very carefully telling me that this is my problem and not your problem, and you are quite right to do so, but we do have this problem. The las…”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alec. Our relationship with the people and countries of the Commonwealth is something to be cherished and developed. The Commonwealth games in my city is an opportunity to do that. The regulations help enable the Commonwealth games to take place in Glasgow this year, …”