MNI BRIEF: BOE Haskel: Ending QE Early Would Be Tightening

Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Jonathan Haskel made clear Monday that his opposition to tightening early extended to opposing early termination of the current GBP150 billion round of asset purchases and to stopping reinvestment of the maturing gilts held by the Bank.

Asked by Market News at a University of Liverpool event if he believed changes to quantitative easing, such as natural run-off of maturing gilts, amounted to tightening, Haskel said "Yes, I do. We are involved in completing our quantitative easing programme that we announced in the height of the pandemic last year. So were we to stop that, in my view, would be a tightening."

Haskel's colleague, Michael Saunders, has explicitly said that he is considering the case for ending the current round of QE early, but Haskel's opposition to tightening extends across the full range of policy tools.