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Carney to Face Lawmaker Who Wants Straight Talk on Brexit

Published 04/09/2019, 01:49 am
Updated 04/09/2019, 04:39 am
© Reuters.  Carney to Face Lawmaker Who Wants Straight Talk on Brexit

(Bloomberg) -- Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is set to face tough questions on Wednesday after Parliament’s Treasury Committee named John Mann as interim chair.

Mann and Carney have had colorful exchanges at committee hearings over the years. The MP previously told Carney he talks like an economist and to put his answers on the impact of a no-deal Brexit on food prices “as more of a human being.”

That exchange was late last year, but it’s been a recurring theme. In 2013, just months after Carney took over the BOE, the Labour Party lawmaker asked whether the governor was selectively choosing data to politically “present a rosier picture” of the economy. In response, Carney said he was “more than mildly offended.”

Mann’s appointment as Treasury Committee chair is temporary. He replaces Nicky Morgan, who left for a role in the cabinet, and an election for the role will likely take place later this month.

The pro-Brexit lawmaker’s first chance to grill Carney as chair comes Wednesday, when the governor appears along with BOE chief economist Andy Haldane and fellow policy makers Jonathan Haskel and Gertjan Vlieghe.

The hearing will cover the August Inflation Report as well as the U.K.’s relationship with the European Union. The session may also give the central bank the opportunity to fulfill the committee’s request for updated Brexit analysis, first released last year.

While Mann, 59, has so far missed every Inflation Report hearing this year, he was present for the one on previous BOE scenarios in December 2018.

At the time, he came to Carney’s defense, thanking him for the analysis, which he said was “vital as part of this country’s democracy.” He also dubbed the criticism of the governor by Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg as “contemptuous of Parliament.”

That was after Rees-Mogg, a former member of the Treasury Committee, responded to the scenarios by calling Carney a “second-tier Canadian politician” and accused him of failing to understand his role.

Still, Mann hasn’t always been so kind to Carney. In the lead-up to the 2016 referendum, he said on Twitter that Carney is “reliant on fear factor alone” to promote the idea that banks could relocate if the country voted for Brexit.

Mann’s Twitter handle says he’s “not scared to say it how it is.”

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