MPC’s Miles will quit FSA board role
NEW Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member David Miles yesterday bowed to growing pressure over a possible conflict of interest with his post as non-executive director of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and said he would resign from the city watchdog – eight months before he was due to stand down.
Although Miles saw no conflicts of interest, the Treasury committee last week highlighted a potential conflict between Miles’ FSA role and his non-executive MPC position, asking both institutions to consider the potential conflicts which arise from cross-membership beyond deputy governor level.
Lord Turner, chairman of the FSA, wrote to the Treasury committee chairman John McFall, saying: “The actual potential for conflict in the case of Professor Miles is however extremely low. Indeed, I find it almost impossible to envisage a situation where a serious conflict could arise.”
Turner added that there was more of a conflict where FSA board members were executives at financial services firms.
Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, agreed. “If conflicts are not thought to arise at an executive level, they surely do not arise at a non-executive level,” he wrote.
But Miles said that reports of the committee’s concern could lead people to think that conflicts were possible and question his independence.