hauser ’ s speech “ from lender of last resort to market maker of last resort via the dash for cash ”. as noted in the minutes of the february 2021 mpc meeting. the bank set out some initial thinking on this in a march 2020 discussion paper, and together with six other central banks and the bank for international settlements published a report in october 2020 identifying the foundational principles necessary for any publicly available cbdcs to help central banks meet their public policy objectives. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches and @ boe _ pressoffice central banks including the bank of england are considering what contribution they can make, consistent with their remits, to encourage an earlier and more orderly transition to a carbon - neutral economy. qe as a monetary policy tool i will say more about qe and climate change as part of the potential “ future normal ” towards the end of my lecture but for now i want to focus on qe in the context of the here and now. the fact that qe only came into use in the uk in march 2009 means that in practice its history, at least in the uk, is a short one. as figure 2 illustrates, it has been used essentially five times in twelve years. qe1, 2 and 3 came in response to the financial crisis and the euro area crisis that followed ; qe4 followed the brexit referendum ; and qe5, which is still ongoing, formed part of the policy response to the covid crisis last march. figure 2 : bank of england qe programmes and selected policy interventions since 2009 taken from the ieo ’ s report on its evaluation of qe. figure 3 : bank of england balance sheet as a % of gdp source : bank of england, available here. dotted line extends series to end - 2021, assuming completion of current asset purchase programme. all figures shown as a % of lagged gdp except 2021 figure which uses 2019 gdp to avoid distortions from the temporary covid - related falls in 2020. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches and @ boe _ pressoffice the headline numbers involved in those five interventions detailed in figure 2 have been very large : in total once the current programme comes to an end the bank will have purchased £875bn of government bonds and £20bn of corporate bonds – that is roughly 40 % of annual

own quantity rationing exposition of multiple equilibria. it was even more exciting to be taught by someone who was writing about the real - world economic problems of unemployment and how policy could help to achieve a better equilibrium – peter penned a comprehensive overview article with derek morris in the second edition of oxrep in 19853 which is still a very good read today. 4 it should therefore come as no surprise that one of the many other topics that peter turned his prodigious mind to was qe and monetary policy. his 2017 niesr paper with bill allen examined the shift from the “ old normal ” of pre - financial crisis monetary policy to the “ new normal ” of qe and forward guidance, as well as engaging seriously with what a “ future normal ” for monetary policy might look like. 5 that is a framing i will use for this lecture in setting out my own views of qe as a monetary policy tool, and then focusing on two other policy debates highlighted by the ieo review, the links between qe and government financing, an issue peter also considered6, and the links between qe and climate change. the bank of england and its balance sheet i ’ ll come on to the details of what exactly qe is and what uses it has as a policy tool, including over the last 11 months in response to the covid pandemic. but i want to start by considering a more general question, which is the question of what central banks are actually for. that ’ s because i don ’ t think you can answer the question of how to use a tool without first knowing what you want the tool to do. for the bank of england, the answer to that question is clearly set out in the statutory objectives laid down for us by parliament7 : our mission is to promote the good of the people of the united kingdom by maintaining monetary stability, defined by the government as low and stable inflation with a target of 2 % ( and subject to that supporting the government ’ s economic policy and growth and employment objectives ) ; and financial available on the society of professional economists ’ website. peter was the managing editor of oxrep. “ the unemployment problem in the 1980s ”, derek morris and peter sinclair, oxford review of economic policy, vol. 1 no. 2 ( 1985 ). “ monetary policy normals, future and past ”, william allen and peter sinclair, national institute economic review, vol. 241 no. 1 “ quantitative easing is not as