Speeches by Yang.

“Finally, on the flip side, you write in your questionnaire that your opinion is that the “diagnosis of excess supply” in the economy is “uncertain”. You refer to the February Bank of England monetary policy report, which has a small level of slack projected in the economy. Since then, of course, the Bank has come out w…”

“Great. I have a couple of questions about your macroeconomic forecasting, bearing in mind your time at the MPC recently. You mentioned in your questionnaire that neither the OBR nor the Bank of England forecasted well the persistent inflationary pressures post-pandemic. What are your learnings from that period and how …”

“Is that an area in which you think the OBR could improve under your leadership?”

“Do you plan to do media rounds after the publication of next July’s fiscal risks and sustainability report?”

“Continuing on that theme of disagreement, you mentioned earlier that you disagree with the Bank’s view of the labour market. In situations where the OBR and the Bank have quite different assumption about what is driving trends in the UK economy, do the two institutions simply agree to disagree, or does that lead to ins…”

“Can I ask for more of those under your leadership of the OBR?”

“Professor Haskel, in your questionnaire response, you state that you regret that the OBR’s assessment of the Government meeting their fiscal rules has “on occasion boiled down to a focus in the media on a single metric in the fiscal forecast, namely headroom.” You also conclude that “the OBR cannot in the end dictate w…”

“There was a discussion, as there is each year, about the OBR’s use of baseline projections, which are very sensitive to assumptions about the uprating of income tax brackets and so on. Of course, the OBR takes what is stated in the law de jure, rather than what actually tends to go on in policy making de facto. How do …”

“I suppose what I am trying to get at is whether you see it as your responsibility to provoke that holistic discussion, or see it as the OBR being left to the whims of the media.”

“Referring back to the fiscal risks and sustainability report that came out last week, you also mentioned that raising the profile of this work will be a challenge. How will you take on that challenge?”

“Mr Bailey, I want to go back to your comments about leverage in the gilt markets and the issues there. Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that new reforms would be announced this month about the management of the gilt markets and in particular the use of haircuts. Are there still plans to announce those r…”

“Mr Benjamin, what is the timeline for those future reforms?”

“Is the big concern here that there is a lack of quantitative evidence on either side of this argument, as outlined in the discussion paper?”

“Okay. The discussion paper you mentioned earlier, “Enhancing the resilience of the gilt repo market”, published in September 2025, was launched in collaboration with other agencies—such as the DMO, FCA and Treasury—as well as with market participants, because, of course, management of the gilt market falls between thos…”

“Will that be an update on the thinking rather than an announcement of new measures?”

“Will it be a combined decision of those agencies, or will it be a Bank decision?”

“I want to go to the most controversial of the measures, which is the haircut on gilt repo. Mr Blyth, you mentioned that earlier. Am I right in thinking that you are on the pro side of such a measure?”

“What would you say to your former colleagues who responded to your discussion paper by saying that this might backfire because it may raise funding costs and reduce gilt market liquidity?”

“On this point, Mr Bailey, the chief economist at Handelsbanken has written a note describing that the underlying problem here is the loss of a stable investor base in gilts, and that all the issues you now see with leverage is one manifestation of the underlying problem. Is there work being done in the bank or across G…”

“Do you have a target for where you want that six and a half years to get to? Do you have numerical targets?”