‘UK Monetary Policy – ‘Crossing the river by feeling the stones”, speech given at the Confederation of British Industry, Newcastle upon Tyne. Saunders, M. (2022). ‘The route back to 2% inflation,’ speech given at the Resolution Foundation, London. Weale, M. (2014). ‘What to do when we don't know: Policy-making when spare capacity is uncertain,’ JSG Wilson Lecture, Hull. 1. Consumer price inflation, Office for National Statistics  , April 2022. 2. See Chart 3.8 in ‘Monetary Policy Report - May 2022’, Bank of England. 3. ‘Bank Rate increased to 1% - May 2022’, Bank of England. 4. The inflation target is set by Government, on the basis of the Bank of England Act 1998. The Chancellor of the Exchequer sets out the inflation target and other details of the remit in an annual letter  to the Governor. 5. See the Governor’s opening remarks to the Monetary Policy Report press conference on 5 May 2022. 6. ‘Monetary Policy Report - May 2022’, Bank of England. 7. See Pill (2021, 2022) and a speech by one of my predecessors on the MPC, Martin Weale (2014). 8. See Evans et al. (2015) for a rationalisation of the ‘risk management’ approach to monetary policy, which has been used to underpin this supportive stance.
BIS Review 113/1999  2  Until a decade ago, one might have been fooled into thinking that there were in fact two separate European identities supported by two distinct economic systems. However, this would be to deny the close ties which still existed, even under the difficult circumstances of the time, between countries both east and west of the Iron Curtain. Events since the fall of the Berlin Wall have now shown that this difficult period did not destroy but merely delayed a process of further European integration – including both East and West – which is a natural consequence of our shared political and economic interests and our common cultural heritage. Ever since the velvet revolutions which swept across central and eastern Europe a decade ago, it has been apparent that, as part of their difficult transition to properly functioning market economies, these countries would become increasingly integrated with the economies of western Europe. Moreover, it was clear that this process, with its ultimate objective of accession to the European Union, could not be achieved instantaneously, but would have to be extended over a period of time, in some cases a considerable period of time. No other scenario could be foreseen, given the largely uncharted path which these countries had to tread in dismantling the old system of central planning and replacing it with the structures necessary to support a properly functioning market economy.