Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions he has had with which financial institutions on the energy exposure of such institutions in response to the falling price of oil.

The Chancellor set out the government’s view on the challenges facing the UK economy in a speech on 7 January. The transcript of the speech is available from www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chancellor-on-challenges-facing-uk-economy-in-2016. The Chancellor and other Ministers meet regularly with regulators and the Bank of England. In addition, the Bank of England’s Financial Stability Report sets out an analysis, which can be found here:

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/fsr/2015/dec.aspx

The Financial Policy Committee’s (FPC) stress test results in December 2015 suggest that the major UK banks would be resilient to a sustained commodity price downturn.

The UK now has a robust system of financial regulation, where the regulators have clear objectives and powers to deal with risks to the financial sector. The Government established the FPC to identify, monitor and address systemic risks to financial stability.