Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with reference to correspondence from the Economic Secretary to the Treasury to the Chair of the Treasury Committee on 30 January 2019 on how the Standard Variable Rate will be set; what the identity is of the regulatory active lenders in the mechanism referred to on page 3; what the current level of Standard Variable Rate being charged by those lenders is; and what formula was used by UK Asset Resolution to link its Standard Variable Rate to the rate charged by those lenders.

NRAM Limited (NRAM) and Bradford & Bingley plc (B&B) set their Standard Variable Rates (SVR) by reference to the SVRs of the top fifteen UK mortgage providers. Currently these fifteen lenders collectively hold c.90% of the outstanding mortgage balances of members of UK Finance, the industry's trade body. This ensures that NRAM’s and B&B’s SVRs are in line with other variable rates available in the market.

The ranking of lenders by value of mortgages outstanding is available from UK Finance’s website at www.ukfinance.org.uk, and the SVRs currently offered by lenders are also publicly available on their respective websites.