Bank of England needs more diversity Treasury Select Committee head Nicky Morgan tells chancellor

The Bank of England needs to improve “diversity at the most senior levels”, according to a letter written today to the chancellor by the influential head of the Treasury Select Committee, Nicky Morgan.

Morgan said: “The Treasury must make all efforts to encourage as diverse range of candidates for the Bank’s policy committees as possible.”

In her letter to the chancellor, Morgan said the committee “expects to be provided, prior to its appointment hearings, with diversity data on the candidates applying to the associated position.”

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Morgan also demanded the Treasury, which appoints MPC members as well as those on the financial policy committee, “publish recent historical data about the applicants for MPC and the FPC membership (internal and external).

“This should include a breakdown by gender of applicants at each stage of the process.”

The group of MPs, led by Morgan, yesterday approved the appointments of two new members of the Bank’s MPC, Sir Dave Ramsden and Silvana Tenreyro.

However, Tenreyro is now the only member of the MPC who is not a white male. The gender balance of the MPC has shifted significantly in the last year.

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The Treasury Select Committee itself played an important part in the resignation of rising star and newly appointed governor Charlotte Hogg, after it refused to endorse her appointment following an oversight in her declaration of interests.

Meanwhile, Nemat Shafik left in February as deputy governor to take up the role of director of the London School of Economics; in June Kristin Forbes finished her three-year term as an external member of the MPC.

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