The MPC since I joined it at the end of 2013 certainly appears to have been pretty consistently stodgy in the sense of slow moving. We have moved policy twice over that period. And one of those moves was a response to an exceptional and unprecedented exogenous event – the Brexit referendum. Only one move, the rate increase last November can be thought of as usual, ‘bread and butter’ monetary policy. There has been one or more votes for changing policy in only 22 of the 49 meetings. When I compare this to 2002 to 2007 -- my period on the Committee as the Treasury representative -- the contrast is striking. Over that period, the Committee moved policy 12 times and with one or more votes for changing policy in 41 of the 56 meetings. This lack of action from the Committee since I joined it as a member in 2013 was certainly not the reflection of lack of developments in the UK economy. From mid 2013 to early 2015, unemployment dropped like a stone – by 2pp in the space of 18 months, the fastest rate for 25 years. At the same time, growth was picking up from close to 1% to about 3%. 1  Blinder (1999) 2  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  2  Nor was it the result of lack of advice. As Mark Carney has recently pointed out, the pre-crisis MPC had always tightened policy in response to accelerating growth and firming business confidence.
16  12  Having been at 3% or above through the last quarter of 2018, the 3m-o-3m rate was 2.5-2.6% for the first three months of 2018 and weakened a little more, to 2.4%, in April. 13 As Bell and Blanchflower (2018) have highlighted, though low, indicators of underemployment remain above pre-crisis levels. 14 Carney (2018) and McCafferty (2018) 15 Or as elegantly put by Rudi Dornbusch – crises take longer to arrive than one would expect, but then happen faster than one would have thought. 16 Tenreyro (2018) 9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  9  My assessment is that these are the lesser risks; while more familiar economic relationships seem to be re-establishing themselves we are unlikely fully to go back to the future – some of the changes in the structure of the economy we have seen will be persistent. 17  I have managed to get pretty close to the end of my discussion of policy and uncertainty without mentioning Brexit – which is surely an achievement nowadays. Brexit, both the eventual end state and the path to it, create very material uncertainties for the UK economy. I do not, however, see these uncertainties as justification for stodgier approach. Brexit is already affecting the UK economy. The depreciation of sterling following the referendum generated inflation that has in turn squeezed real incomes and led to the drop in consumption and activity in the UK at the end of 2016.