As you know, we have a branch office up here in Yorkshire, in fact in Leeds, which serves as a part of our network of eyes and ears and indeed voices at 13 locations throughout the UK. The new responsibility made us more conscious than ever of the importance also of visits around the country by senior members of the Bank in London, including members of the MPC and indeed our Directors, both to inform themselves about local economic conditions and to explain locally what it is that we are trying to do. That explains why you have been seeing much more of us in recent years and it explains in particular tonight’s invasion of Yorkshire, by 11 of our 16 Directors and 6 of the 9 members of the MPC. Tomorrow in Leeds will in fact be the third occasion on which our Court has held one of its monthly meetings outside London since the new legislation was introduced in 1998, a practice which we intend to continue. So that I hope explains why we are here – and I hope that you will avail yourselves of the opportunity to bend the ears of our representatives where you can – but preferably not until I’ve finished speaking to you!
But on the basis of that forecast the short answer to the question: can our steady economic progress be maintained, over the next couple of years anyway, is a cautious “yes”. Since that forecast was completed things have gone in different directions. The prospect for external demand has somewhat weakened and so too has the oil price. There are mixed messages relating to tightness in the labour market, but earnings growth has so far remained reasonably well contained - as it must continue to do. On the domestic demand side, private consumption growth has remained stronger than we had supposed, while the growth in private investment has been weaker; meanwhile it is not clear that underlying public sector demand has – at least yet – picked up as rapidly as planned. The exchange rate has fallen, and so, too, have market interest rates. I would not venture to suggest how these – and all the other developments we look at – will influence our next forecast in February; and it would be pointless to anticipate possible future policy decisions. I would be surprised if they radically altered the broad prospect of relatively steady progress over the next two years. But I can assure you of one thing: if the prospect – or the balance of risks around it – were to change significantly – either in the context of our February forecast or subsequently – we will promptly react to that change.