Carney’s £50,000 expenses in three months attacked
BANK of England Governor Mark Carney and two US-based advisers have racked up more than £100,000 on travel costs and taxis in just three months, figures revealed yesterday.
MPs have previously slammed the Bank over its “staggering” expenses.
Mr Carney claimed £50,664 in expenses, including £781 on taxis, between March and May, according to the Bank.
Donald Kohn, a member of the financial policy committee, spent £31,000 on travel including three return flights from Washington to London. The Commons Treasury Select Committee heard in June that Mr Kohn and Anil Kashyap, another Bank member, had spent £390,000 on travel over the past two and a half years.
MPs were told that the cost included more than £11,000 paid for one flight for Mr Kashyap from Chicago to London.
Tory MP Simon Clarke said that cost had “disturbing echoes” of the MPs’ expenses scandal.
But the Bank has since said the cost covered four transAtlantic flights.
Mr Carney revealed in June that his expenses totalled £312,000 over the past two years.
Committee chairwoman Nicky Morgan said the Bank’s staff expenses remain “staggeringly high”.
Bank chair of court Bradley Fried has assured MPs that it would “review and refresh” its travel arrangements and expenses.
Ms Morgan said: “The committee will keep an eye on the review and its impact on the Bank’s expenses.”
Mr Carney defended the cost in June, saying the expenses were justified.
JAYNE-ANNE Gadhia has said a more diverse City leadership would have helped during the financial crisis, but stopped short of recommending a woman be installed as the next Bank of England governor.
The Virgin Money chief executive said the shortlist for Mark Carney’s replacement should be evenly split between the sexes, with each candidate assessed on merits alone.
“I think that the shortlist should be equal, there should be two or three men and two or three women... and everyone should then be judged according to their capability and ability to do the job in the best interest of the country,” she said.
“So yes, of course, I back a balanced list but I don’t believe in positive discrimination, I believe in discriminating to find the best possible person.”
The gender equality champion did not support the idea that a woman should be chosen just to boost diversity at the central bank.
“What I’m fighting for is that the capability, skill and trustworthiness et cetera of men and women is measured equally so that each gets an equal opportunity to get jobs big and small.
“So I don’t think it’s necessary that the next Bank of England governor is a woman. I think it’s very necessary that men and women have an equal opportunity to go for the job and the best person gets it, male or female.”
The Treasury has come under fire for failing to appoint enough women to the Bank of England’s senior ranks, despite having drawn up a female-dominated shortlist for one of the newer members of the interestrate setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).
There is only one woman on the Bank’s nine-strong MPC – Silvana Tenreyro.
But Mrs Gadhia said more diversity in City boardrooms – including at her former employer Royal Bank of Scotland – could have made a difference in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis.
“Of course more women would have helped but so would more diversity in every respect.”
She added: “It’s much more to do with diversity of thought, diversity of background – particularly social background is really important, ethnicity, sexuality.
“Organisations, in my view, need to mirror the customer base that they’re serving and the society that we operate within.
“So I think that’s really important and that would have made a difference, and that certainly didn’t exist at RBS 10 years ago.”
Meanwhile, research has found that the number of young directors in smaller companies has increased by more than a third to 56,000 over the past year.
The rise has been fuelled by graduates launching their own businesses after finding it difficult to get a job because of the credit crunch, said accountants Moore Stephens.
The growing influence of the gig economy is also giving more young university and school-leavers a taste of managing their own business.