New powers for Bank of England will be central to Tory economic proposals

On Monday, George Osborne is set to announce details of Conservative economic proposals, geared towards resolving current difficulties. Today, a policy of increased powers for the Bank of England have been revealed - including the ability to rescue failing banks and to monitor consumer and corporate debt.

The announcement follow's Cameron's interview in today's Daily Mail, where he revealed proposals to take away from the Treasury some of its oversight over taxation and government spending: "We are at the end of 14 years of economic growth and we have got an enormous deficit. What we need is external judgment of fiscal policy."

The BBC's Robin Chrystal suggested Conservatives are "likely to present their proposals as more far-reaching and on a par with Gordon Brown's decision to give the Bank independence in 1997".

Comments

[Dominic]

On arriving at the conference at Birmingham David Cameron was asked by Sky Television about incompetent Brown’s comment about a novice he ignored the questioner and brushed by into the building.
Maybe he should have replied “you mean his reference to Millaband I agree but of course at one time he was a novice when taking office ten years ago and with the state of the economy is still a novice”.

In all seriousness the Conservative party has to take the gloves off and go for this incompetent Labour Party the silence over the last few weeks has been deafining.

[RichardJ]

The Bank of England is part of the problem. As long as it's there to bail out banks that make bad decisions they will be encouraged to lend wrecklessly. It has also kept interest rates artificially low.

Want to do something radical? Shut it down.

[Doug]

This seems as good a place as any to say that some may not know that Her Majesties Revenue and Customs have made a ruling that certain North Sea oil jobs do not qualify as working on ships (despite being on what any sensible person would call a ship) which means they are stripped of their seafaring income tax status. This affects thousands of people and is also backdated to April 2007. I think we all know here that this is part of the governments efforts to squeeze as much tax as possible out of people and the economy to keep shovelling into their bloated spending.

I just want to see the back of this bloody shower of failures.

[YMT]

@Dominic
With Labour slightly back up in the polls, Cameron may just think its ok to take the gloves off briefly. Problem is that GB has been in such a state for the last few months that if we'd gone on a relentless attack we would have incited the public to giving him some sympathy. Not what we want to do.

[snegchui]

What is seafaring income tax status mean?
More controversially, why backdating? This is a bad principle and to be severely frowned upon and discouraged.

[David Sergeant]

These proposals have been referred to in the media as revolutionary as Brown's changes to the BoE. Interesting, because Brown never said what he was going to do until after the GE. (And they talk about Cameron being unprepared!) If Brown's idea was so good why was it not mentioned before? How about it was never to do with "stability", it was to do with Brown getting trade unions and Labour MPs of his back about interest rates? Which suggests that his disasterous split with the BoE and the FSA was just to dress up his BoE changes so Labour MPs would not suspect what he was doing?

I strongly recommend people to understand that Brown and NewLab were perfectly capable of this sort of thought.

[Richard North]

Cameron and Osborne need to be very, very careful on this otherwise they could end up with egg on their faces.

Financial services regulation is an "occupied field" in EU law which means that the member state no longer has "national legislative competence".

It can only legislate with the consent of the commission and any law enacted by the UK legislature which conflicts with EU law can be struck down by the ECJ as invalid.

In fact, given the depth of the EU's FSAP - having regard to Prantl, it is hard to see whether the UK legislature has the competence to make law in the specific field that Cameron seems to be proposing.

[Yammer]

A first good move, lets hope it shuts up bitter Davis. Who does he think he is telling the party we have a year to come up with some good policies.
He lost the election - its not his call.

[Richard North]

If the Cameron/Osborne team are intent on offering anything like what they currently seem to be proposing, Davis will be the least of the Party's problems. They will lay themselves open to being shot down in flames with something they do not have the legal authority (under EU law) to do.

The FSA/Bank of England relationship has the EU's fingerprints all over it, with the FSA's role as a "competent authority" to administer and enforce EU financial services directives being virtually set in stone.

No British government can change that structure without intensive negotiations with the EU commission - from which it would need permission - leaving Cameron open to the humiliation of proposing measures which he is not in a position to deliver.

[Richard Calhoun]

The politicians have to divest real responsibility to the BofE and give them a constitution that will stand the test of time.

[Richard North]

Read my lips: unless the new Conservative government is prepared to confront - and then disobey - the EU, it cannot accord supervisory responsibility for the financial services industry to the BoE.

This, however, is a complex siutation which is difficult to argue in the space of a comments post. I am therefore, writing a long piece which I will put up on EU Referendum and then post a link here when it is ready - if the editor permits.

[Richard Calhoun]

No British government can change that structure without intensive negotiations with the EU commission - from which it would need permission - leaving Cameron open to the humiliation of proposing measures which he is not in a position to deliver.
Posted by: Richard North | September 27, 2008 at 21:28

By the time the current financial crisis has unfolded, 18 months?? I don't think our EU masters are going to have much say in these things, just look what happened when LloydsTSB wanted to take over HBOS, all the rules were deemed dispensable.

We are going to be in a new World!!

[Richard North]

Richard C

That is far from the case. It remains to be seen whether the two-thirds exemption applies. EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has saidas saying: "It is up to the parties concerned to verify whether they need to notify the HBOS/Lloyds deal to Brussels under the EU merger regulation, or just to the UK authorities."

If such a notification is made, the commission is obliged to act but, so far, one has not been made. See here.

[David]

I agree with North. He knows about the EU inside out. It's a cliche but true - there's an EU elephant in the room studiously ignored by the lib-lab-con party.

[Pete]

"The announcement follow's Cameron's interview in today's Daily Mail, where he revealed proposals to take away from the Treasury some of its oversight over taxation and government spending: "We are at the end of 14 years of economic growth and we have got an enormous deficit. What we need is external judgment of fiscal policy."

That 'external judgment' is to be provided by the European Commission. (And Dave knows it.)

[Richard North]

It looks like the BBC report may have been misleading, over-emphasising the proposed role of the BoE. I have tried to take this into account in writing an explanatory post, as promised.

[Edward Huxley]

I`m afraid Richard North is right. As with nearly everything, the EU makes the decisions. Four out of every five of our laws come from Brussels.

Pity Messrs. Cameron and Osborne did not do a little research before coming out with these rash statements.

They have made themselves look foolish

[Dominic]

The Suggestions below come from Tax Justice Network that have the ear of the unions, HMRC and the Democrats in the U S.
They have at the helm Richard Murphy an Accountant who writes many articles for Accountancy Age and the Guardian and would love to see the demise of the Offshore industry.

Cut interest rates now and sack the MPC if need be
Robert Peston has spreading alarm today. He has said taxpayers are exposed to loss on £41 billion of Bradford & Bingley mortgages. This is not true for three reasons. First, many of them will be of acceptable quality. Even if a significant number are buy to let mortgages, where he says there is risk that the landlords might just return the keys, there is an active rental market, and many of these properties will have an income attached to them. That makes them a performing asset, even if not at full value. Third, there is an easy way out of this crisis, although Peston does not mention it.
Let’s suppose the average mortgage is for £180,000, for 25 years, is a repayment mortgage and the rate available is 7% (which is fair). According to the BBC mortgage calculator (and I’m presuming it works reasonably: by my logic it looks right) then this scenario creates a monthly repayment of £1,287.15. Interest only it would be £1,050.
It’s not long ago that people were getting rates of around 5% as introductory offers. That would have cost £1,064.28 a month. At those rates many more people could afford their loans. It’s clear that a margin of £200 a month makes many more mortgages unrepayable.
It so happens that right now it seems that a property on the market for about £200,000 (i.e. worth just a little more than the above mortgage) rents for a bit over £800 a month in areas I am familiar with. That £200 a month margin is clearly important.
So what would make these mortgages viable? The answer is simple: a 3% rate cut would make all them viable. On a repayment basis that mortgage would come down to £960 a month. On a repayment basis it would be £600 a month. Any buy to let landlord can make a margin on that. Many households would be better off: they could begin to tackle other dent issues.
Suddenly almost every mortgage on every banks books in the UK ceases to be toxic. This does not remove the US risk. It does not stop other debt issues. But a massive exposure risk for UK banks, which is more than enough to wipe out their capital, is eliminated. And at no cost to the Treasury.
The advantages are obvious. Most banks will have their balance sheets stabilised. The housing market will have a line draw under it. The risk of deflation, which is enormous at present, will be mitigated by the inflationary impact of a rate cut. Companies that look likely to go bust, such as MFI, may get the boost they need to stay in business. Business will be better able to afford investment. The cost of the extra government borrowing will go down, considerably. People will stay in their homes. The state will not have to rehouse them. The downward pressure on house prices from re-possessions will slow or stop. The private rental market will not collapse as landlords give up their properties. Chaos will be avoided.
And yet as far as we know only one member of the Monetary Policy Committee to cut rates. That’s because they have been given the wrong brief by a poorly advised government and have been lead by bankers who have no concern for society at large, being largely isolated from it.
I made a lost of things the government should be doing this morning. Here are some more:
1) Bring the Monetary Policy Committee back under Whitehall control
2) Get Mervyn King off it
3) Give it a brief to manage rates in the interests of the economy as a whole
4) Cut rates by 3% now
5) Review rates weekly for the time being.
It seems so glaringly obvious that doing this could avoid catastrophe in the UK economy that it is staggering that it has not happened. It’s time Gordon Brown ate humble pie and over-rode this generally inept committee. We cannot afford for him not to.

[Dominic]

I will repeat again
With the World economies in tatters the Labour Government and City boys and Auditors being blamed in the Telegraph and on this blog there seems to be many people advocating the withdrawal from Europe and just become a trading partner.
Being the second largest contributor and throwing our money into a bottomless pit and adhering to every silly little directive which is costing our country a fortune it should be the right time to consider our position.

We have all heard the term charity begins at home this economic situation should be the time to look after Britain PLC. In business who has ever heard the largest company in Britain giving Joe Blogs money to compete against them.
Why should we have to accept millions of people from Europe in our little Island because we are the softest touch in the World?
Why can we not kick out criminals that are not British and so on?
If we want Britain to be a successful and thriving economy we will never achieve this by being run by Europe that have not had the auditors sign off for thirteen years.
Ask any business person that has got any real entrepreneurial sense and most would say get out and enjoy the freedom of being out of this losing strait jacket take control of your own country.
Daniel Hannan raises some very good points below .Would any sane person if they had their time over again want to be in this club called Europe. How rich we would be if we just concentrated on Britain PLC .This terrible World economical dilemma could be the excuse we need to remove the shackles from our down trodden people.
It is laughable a few years ago that an incoming Conservative Council was threatened with fines running into hundreds of thousands of pounds from Europe if they did not accept the outgoing Labour UDP this situation is an every day occurrence now Europe is threatening large fines if Incinerator Plants are not installed within a certain time limit.
Can any body imagine the financial freedom we would have and we could then look after the Channel Islands that have contributed billions into the City of London.
If only the Conservative Party if elected had the balls to at least consider this option.
Can anybody put up a financial argument for staying in Europe. Make sure you listen to Daniel Hannan and Lindsay Jenkins at one of the fringe meetings tomorrow Monday.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/09/26/do2601.xml