UK taking steps against crunch, says Brown
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the U.K. government will help first-time homebuyers and take steps to combat a surge in credit costs, the latest effort to regain voters' confidence in his handling of the economy.
Brown said Britain has asked global financial regulators to meet more regularly and for banks to disclose losses more quickly. The government, he said, will keep a lid on inflation, enabling the Bank of England to cut interest rates. He also said ministers will push banks to boost lending to small companies and provide public money for homebuyers in shared-equity purchases.
``Our task will be to steer people through this global financial turbulence and to be on their side,'' Brown told reporters at his monthly press conference in London today. ``We will continue to examine what more we can do.''
Governments and central banks around the world are seeking an end to a financial crisis in which banks have written off over $200 billion of losses stemming from the U.S. subprime mortgage market collapse. Institutions have stopped lending to all but the safest borrowers as the cost of credit soared.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling will push for the steps to improve bank lending at the Group of Seven finance ministers in Washington next week. Brown said he wants ministers to attend the Financial Stability Forum, a group based in Basel, Switzerland, that now takes input from lower-level officials.
`See Action'
``I want to see action at the G-7 meeting that takes place in a few days time,'' Brown said, adding that he will take up some of the measures with U.S. President George W. Bush later this month.
Brown said that domestic measures, such as the help for first-time buyers and pensioners that were announced in the annual budget last month, while important, are secondary to maintaining economic stability.
``What I want to do is to make it possible for the Bank of England to cut interest rates as it has,'' Brown said ``We will try to create the conditions where it is possible where rates can remain low.''
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