April 5 2020 (article by Andrew Bailey in the Financial Times)
Bank of England is not doing ‘monetary financing’
… the Monetary Policy Committee voted last month to increase the bank’s bond holdings by £200bn to support the needs of the British people. Some external commentators are linking this move to fears that it that it may be using “monetary financing”, a permanent expansion of the central bank balance sheet with the aim of funding the government.
This type of reserve creation has been linked in other countries to runaway inflation. That is because it could undermine a central bank’s ability to control monetary conditions over the medium term. Using monetary financing would damage credibility on controlling inflation by eroding operational independence. It would also ultimately result in an unsustainable central bank balance sheet and is incompatible with the pursuit of an inflation target by an independent central bank.
But the UK’s institutional safeguards rule out this approach.
The UK has become the first country to embrace the monetary financing of government to fund the immediate cost of fighting coronavirus, with the Bank of England to directly finance the state’s spending needs on a temporary basis. The move would allow the government to bypass the bond market until the Covid-19 pandemic subsides even though it will face criticism it is engaged in Zimbabwe-style policy that has led to hyperinflation where it has persisted.