Monetary Policy

(asked on 17th March 2021) - View Source

Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the Bank of England’s actions to insulate public funding to interest rate increases by issuing debt with larger maturities; and the effect of quantitative easing on that strategy.


Answered by
 Portrait
Lord Agnew of Oulton
This question was answered on 24th March 2021

The UK Debt Management Office, an executive agency of HM Treasury, is responsible for government wholesale sterling debt issuance, not the Bank of England. HM Treasury and the Debt Management Office seek to minimise, over the long term, the costs of meeting the Government’s financing needs, taking into account risk.

In its March 2021 Economic and fiscal outlook the Office for Budget Responsibility noted that quantitative easing reduces the average effective maturity of UK government debt from 15 years to 11 years. This maturity remains much longer than international peers, with most G7 countries’ debt maturity averaging 5-8 years.

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