Bank of England deputy urged to quit over undeclared conflict of interest

LONDON: The Bank of England’s new deputy governor Charlotte Hogg was urged to quit by a lawmaker after she admitted failing to declare a potential conflict of interest about her brother’s role at Barclays, a bank overseen by the BoE.

Hogg joined the BoE in 2013 and started as deputy governor on March 1.

But she only revealed her brother’s job guiding Barclays’ response to bank regulation when she prepared information for lawmakers reviewing her appointment last week.

“I should have formally declared my brother’s role when I first joined the Bank. I did not do so and I take full responsibility for this oversight,” Hogg said in a letter to the lawmakers which was released on Tuesday.

Hogg, whose earlier career was in retail banking, became the BoE’s first chief operating officer at the same time as Governor Mark Carney started at the BoE in 2013.

She had a brief to modernise the central bank’s management as it took on wide-ranging responsibilities for financial services.

Her family have played a prominent role in British public life, producing several generations of senior politicians and lawyers, and her appointment drew earlier concern from some lawmakers that it would do little to broaden the BoE’s thinking.

The chair of the BoE’s supervisory body, Anthony Habgood, said on Tuesday that Hogg’s failure to tell the BoE of her brother’s highlevel job in financial services was ‘very serious’.

Andrew Tyrie, the Conservative head of parliament’s crossparty Treasury Committee, said the panel’s members would need time to consider its response to the surprise revelation.

But one member immediately called on Hogg to resign.

“Last week Charlotte Hogg proudly told this committee that she actually wrote the Bank’s code of conduct and has now admitted to repeatedly breaking it,” Labour lawmaker John Mann said.

“This is a simple question about standards in public life, and in this regard she has failed and must resign,” he said. — Reuters