Speeches

Phil Boswell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the HM Treasury

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Phil Boswell on 2016-02-19.

To ask Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, what discussions his Department has had with the Prudential Regulation Authority on the level of risk at (a) financial institutions with high energy market exposure and (b) such institutions which have issued loans to the North Sea oil industry.

Harriett Baldwin

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.