opening remarks at the £10 note launch speech given by mark carney governor of the bank of england winchester cathedral tuesday 18 july 2017 all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / speeches i would like to express my gratitude to dean catherine ogle for her generosity in hosting this event in the magnificent winchester cathedral. there can be no better place to unveil the new £10 banknote, featuring jane austen, and there can be no th better time than today, the 200 anniversary of her death. this building, admired by austen herself, commemorates her legacy and has become a place of pilgrimage for her admirers. the inscription on her grave, in the north aisle of the nave of the cathedral, attests to her character : “ the benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her and the warmest love of her intimate connections ”. a brass plaque on the wall alongside recognises her many writings. and the memorial window above them all, paid for by public subscription, testifies to the popularity and enduring appeal of her work. an appeal which draws a regular procession of tourists from all over the world. banknote character £10 would have meant a lot to jane austen – about the same as £1000 would mean to us today. £10 was half the annual allowance she received from her father while he was alive. a £10 note may also have had a symbolic meaning to her, as it was the amount she was paid by publishers crosby and co. for her first novel, susan. just as a £10 banknote might have evoked memories for jane austen, so does money serve as a collective memory for a country and its people. our banknotes have cultural as well as economic value. through the characters on our banknotes, we celebrate the breadth and depth of achievement across the united kingdom, in fields ranging from literature to the visual arts, science and statecraft. once she replaces charles darwin on the £10 banknote this september, jane austen will sit alongside winston churchill on the new £5, adam smith on the £20, and boulton and watt on the £50. around the end of the decade, smith will be replaced on the £20 by jmw turner. these individuals have advanced british thought, spurred innovation, exerted exceptional leadership, and more generally helped to shape this diverse society and forge our common values. as the “ mother of

growth followed a sluggish first - quarter gain : that choppiness in growth reflected large swings in several factors that are often volatile, including inventory investment, federal defense outlays, and net exports. smoothing through this volatility, the underlying pattern of activity in the first half of the year essentially represented a continuation of the moderate growth that had prevailed since the spring of last year when growth in real gross domestic product stepped down from an above - trend pace. many of the spending indicators for the current quarter have remained consistent with that earlier trend. however, for the most part, these data cover a period that predates the recent onset of financial turbulence. the step - down in the growth of real output that began in mid - 2006 and proceeded through the middle of this year primarily reflected weakness in the housing market. declines in real residential investment subtracted nearly 1 - 1 / 4 percentage points from the growth of real gdp i would like to thank daniel sichel and lawrence slifman for the excellent comments and assistance on this speech. in the second half of last year and about 3 / 4 percentage point in the first half of this year. moreover, the demand for housing appears to be weakening further amid credit conditions for home mortgage lending that are generally tighter, but especially so in the subprime segment. sales of existing single - family homes in july were more than 20 percent below their peak in mid - 2005, while sales of new homes in july were more than 37 percent below their peak. although housing starts have also moved down over the past year, the decline thus far has lagged the downturn in sales, and the backlog of unsold new homes has climbed to a very high level relative to sales. given this sizable backlog and the likelihood that sales will remain weak or weaken further in coming months, cutbacks in housing construction are likely to continue to be a drag on economic activity in future quarters. turning to consumer spending, real outlays decelerated considerably in the second quarter. to some extent, a moderation from the very rapid pace of growth around the turn of the year probably was to be expected. in the second quarter, in particular, a jump in energy prices eroded the purchasing power of gains in household income, placing downward pressure on the growth of real spending at that point. even so, early indications are that household spending is holding up reasonably well thus far in the current quarter : real outlays for goods excluding motor vehicles posted a