As George Osborne readies for gloomy debt forecasts next week, Sir Mervyn King said it was “very clear” that any headline boost to the public finances from the Treasury’s move would not help the “underlying” position – and signalled that it should not be presented to the public as doing so, the Daily Telegraph reports.
“What I did make very clear to the Treasury was that I thought it had no impact at all on the long-run fiscal position and there was no benefit to the taxpayer of making this change,” he told MPs.
It was for the Treasury, rather than the Bank, to “face up to” concerns that “it may be a method of misleading people about the public accounts”, the governor added.
He spoke as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) slashed its UK growth forecasts, and warned unemployment will start rising again next year as uncertainty about the global economic climate weighs on business confidence.
