MPs could force Carney aide to quit over Barclays links
ONE of Mark Carney’s closest allies at the Bank of England was under mounting pressure to resign last night after misleading Parliament over her links to Barclays.
Charlotte Hogg was urged to quit as deputy governor as the row over her failure to declare where her brother Quintin Hogg worked plunged the bank into crisis.
MPs on the Treasury committee could recommend that the 46-year-old is removed from her post as early as Monday in what would be a painful humiliation for Miss Hogg and her employer.
Committee members last night said she should stand down before then to save further embarrassment and protect its reputation.
Labour MP John Mann said: ‘Her position is untenable and she has to resign.’
A second committee member, who did not want to be named, added: ‘This is very serious. Given how disastrous this has been for Charlotte Hogg, she may want to use the pause in the committee’s deliberations to reflect and consider her position.’
Another said: ‘It is not looking good for her. She has been hoist by her own petard.’
Although the Treasury committee cannot force Miss Hogg to resign, its verdict on her suitability for the job could make her position untenable. The row casts a shadow over the otherwise glittering career of the woman who until now was favourite to become the first female governor in the Bank’s 323-year history when Mr Carney leaves in 2019.
Miss Hogg, an aristocrat whose father Douglas Hogg, Viscount Hailsham, was in John Major’s cabinet and whose grandfather and great-grandfather both served as Lord Chancellor – joined the Bank as chief operating officer in 2013. She took over as deputy governor for banking and markets this month, earning about £350,000 a year. But at no point did she declare that her brother was director of group strategy at Barclays – a lender the Bank regulates. The failure to disclose the link means she broke the Bank’s own code of conduct – a set of rules she helped write. The code states: ‘A relationship with a person or organisation outside the Bank should be disclosed where it may lead or could be perceived to lead to a conflict of interest or advantage.
‘Close personal relationships with those active in... Bank-regulated financial institutions... should all be disclosed.’
Having failed to declare her links to Barclays to the Bank, Miss Hogg then misled Parliament last week when she told the Treasury committee scrutinising her promotion that she had raised all possible conflicts of interest.
In one exchange, she told MPs: ‘I have always declared, from the moment I joined the Bank, all of my potential conflicts of interest. I am in compliance with all of our codes of conduct. I know that. I helped to write them.’
In a letter two days later to committee chairman and Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, Miss Hogg admitted she was wrong.
‘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,’ she wrote.
Miss Hogg, a married mother-oftwo, was given a verbal warning by Mr Carney. The Bank declined to comment.