I should say at the beginning that the views I will express today are not necessarily those of my colleagues at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.1 The implementation of Basel II will raise many practical issues, of course, but I thought it might be most interesting for this audience if I focused on two areas important for internationally active banks: (1) home-host supervisory cooperation, and (2) the proposed bifurcated application of Basel II in the United States and the special issues it creates for cross-border banking.
The improvement in labour market conditions has also been felt across different regions. We’ve also seen the overall size of the labour force grow. More people, particularly older people, are participating in the work force. Net inward migration has also resumed. In the year to April 2018, it amounted to 34,000 people. This is equivalent to 1.4 per cent of the labour force.