16/09/2016 BBC News School Report

Earlier today, Radio 1 Newsbeat's Tina Daheley hosted

Welcome to BBC News school report live. I will be with you for the

next 30 minutes as young people question one of the most influential

people in the country, the governor of the Bank of England.

Thank you all. Thank you for being patient and I am sorry I was late.

Later a school come yet again, story of my life! I am really looking

forward to having this discussion with all of you and the questions

brought in from the country. I want to touch on three things to get as

started, if I may. First, how I got here, not coming by train and car,

but how I ended up being the governor of the Bank of England.

Secondly, the bit about what the bank doors and 30, a bit about the

economy. How is changing and what it means for equality. That beset

upfront that it is a total accident of history that I became the

Governor of the Bank of England. There's a number of people here

wondering how it could have happened. I was born in a place in

the far north of Canada, a town of 2000 people and I grew up in a city

cold Edmonton which at the time was about the size of Coventry and I

went to a school just like this. I was fortunate to have teachers who

are motivating me to find out about the world and explore horizons and

as I studied, I became interested in economics. I thought it explained

how the world was interconnected, how it worked and how it could be

made better. After university, I worked as an economist in the public

sector and then the private sector. I didn't have a fixed plan or some

grand vision that I would end up here today but I was doing something

that I liked, something that I had a passion for and if you do that, you

will succeed. It is hard to tell exactly where or when, whether it is

in sport or drama or literature or whatever, you will succeed. What

happens in life and this was something John Lennon said, life is

what happens when you are making other plans so you cannot map

things. John Lydon was a member of the Beatles and the Beatles were a

rock band in the 60s, I should point that out! What I find is, whenever I

meet people who are old enough to remember who the Beatles where, they

are normally surprised at where her career has taken them but whether

they are happy depends on whether or not they have followed their

passions and that is my first point, my tiny bit of career advice to you.

Secondly, I want to touch on what the Bank of England a chilly does.

It was founded in 1694 so over 300 years ago and its original mission

which is to promote the good of the people of the UK and then we add on,

how do we do that? I'm maintaining monetary and financial stability.

What does that mean? It's basically means a series of things to do with

money. So, the first thing we do is we print money, we create the

banknotes. This week, we have just launched the new ?5 note that as

Winston Churchill on one side and Her Majesty The Queen on the other.

My colleagues, I hope, will pass if you around so you can look at them

and see how they are different. Everyone who asks a question from

me, can keep one. What you will see is that they are different

banknotes. They are made from a type of plastic, they are cleaner, safer,

stronger and that means they can last a spin in the washing machine,

they can be crumbled and folded and they can go through many trials and

relations and still hold their shape. They are also much more

difficult to counterfeit sort you can use them with confidence. The

second thing the Bank of England doors with respect to money is, we

process it. Every transaction, every single payment in this country

ultimately settled through the Bank of England. That totals in a single

day to half a trillion pounds or ?3 million a second. We have the

systems that ultimately make those payments. The third thing we do with

respect to money is, we keep family. By that I mean we keep inflation

low, stable and had a table and that means we sometimes have to change

interest rates, we have two engage in purchasing assets and that is

what we announced a few weeks ago, a series of initiatives in order to

make sure that inflation remained low and stable as this economy was

adjusting and it will just, to the decision to leave the EU, we want to

make sure we can support jobs and wages while we go through these

adjustments. The final thing we do with respect to money is, we make

sure it is secure so it is secure in the banks and the financial system

is robust because the last thing you want to worry about is your savings

out of a bank when you want it and we want to make sure that our system

can absorb shocks that might happen around the world so that people in

Coventry and across the UK can just get on with their daily lives.

Really, what we do in the end is support confidence in money and all

aspects of money. The thing about money bill is, it is not an end, it

is just a means to an end. The reason we have money is to finance

companies or help companies produce the goods and services we all use to

help charities do their jobs to help support the arts, culture and sport.

What money really does is help our economy I just and most importantly,

advance and that brings me to my last point which is just around the

pace of change and the future of the economy. It is fair to say that the

economy is changing and advancing at a much more rapid rate than it had

in the past. There are a series of economic and technological and even

cultural shifts that are changing how we all communicate, work and

live and this is an example, the way this has been networked in and

people across the country are using multiple channels to reach people

again across the country. That is an example of some of these changes and

these are and amended breakthroughs, they bring tremendous opportunities.

Yours is the generation that will seize the opportunities for ranging

from communications to biotech, all these different types of engineering

that will change the way we work. In the coming age, he will grow up in

your careers in a system where anyone can produce anything anywhere

through 3-D printing. Where anyone can broadcast a performance globally

through a variety of channels and media, that is true today. And where

any business or service can sell their goods and services to places

as far afield as China. You can be a small business located right here in

Coventry or where I grew up in Canada. There really is each and

this opportunity for what I would call mass creativity, to use your

imagination to create things and take advantage of that. In order to

truly take advantage of that, literally requires is a dedication

to learning. Continuous learning. And to go back to my first point,

the easiest way to do learn continuously, the most enjoyable way

and ultimately the most productive way is to learn about things that

you care about. What interests you? Your passions. The purpose, as I

understand it of this element is just to expose you to different

careers, opportunities, parts of the economy and society that might

interest you, to allow you to expand your imagination in terms of what is

possible because I can tell you, if I can be standing here as governor

of the Bank of England, you can do whatever you want. With that, I will

join Tina and you will ask me questions. Thank you very much.

Let's get on with the questions and the first one comes from here and it

is from Martina. I have a question from Melanie from a school in London

and she is asking, how is your job relevant to young people like us?

Well, I think what I just said, which is it is relevant because

young people like yourself or the lady who asked the question and do

my job if they want in the full lists of time if that is the type of

thing they are interested in. More broadly, it is relevant because if I

and my colleagues do our job properly, if we deal with all these

issues related to money, you don't have to worry about them. In other

words, you don't have to worry about the financial system being there, it

will be there. You don't have to worry about inflation or whether or

not your banknote is counterfeit. You can focus on more interesting

things which are your passions. The second question comes from Ciaran. I

have a question from grace, aged 14 and she asks, why do we still have

pennies when we cannot buy anything by them? That is a very good

question. It is a question for the Royal Mint who produces the pennies,

we just produce the banknotes. I will say that in a number of other

countries, because the penny is not used very frequently and to be

honest, I rarely see them, they have done away with the penny and one of

the interesting things, what they did in other cases, they used the

existing pennies, they give people the opportunity to donate them to

charity and it was very successful but it is a decision for other

people and they are still legal tender and can be used to buy

things. Do you think it is a good idea? At some point. I made the

point that we keep inflation low, stable and collectable. What that

means is, what Parliament tells us to do is make sure it averages about

2% a year. Inflation is how you measure the cost of living? Exactly,

so the cost of a chocolate bar should go up by 2% every year.

Ideally, we Jews are going up more than that so people are getting

ahead. -- wages. Over time, that means the value of a penny goes down

so at some point it does make sense. My name is Ciaran, why should we

save money in a bank when interest rates are so low? You see before a

variety of reasons and part of the reason, certainly when I save, is to

put money aside for a bigger purchase in the future. In your

life, there will be times when you get money, maybe you get a gift for

your birthday or a holiday, maybe in the summer or you get a summer job

and you get some money, you don't want to spend all that immediately

necessarily because you might want to save up for a bike or something.

Ultimately, people save up for a house and the recently put the money

in the bank is they know the bank is secure and that money will be there

when they need to take it out. Those are some reasons. We recognise that

by keeping interest rates so low, we are giving incentives for people to

spend or to invest in riskier things. What is the best and parts

worst of your role as the governor of the Bank of England? The best

part of my job is, you might expect me to say this, but the best part of

my job or things like this. I have the privilege, I get to go around

the country. I often go to schools and I get to go to businesses, I see

really interesting businesses across the UK, learn something about them,

talk to people who are moving forwards, inventing and I find that

tremendously exciting because what we do at the bank is quite high

level in many respects. We make big decisions about interest rates and

where the economy is going but it is really nice, it is fun and

interesting and energising to see the decisions in the economy. That

is the best thing. In terms of the worst thing, well, it is probably

candidly, it is that the nature of international meetings means that

they are always on the weekend and so it means that one out of every

three weekends, I have to go somewhere to work for the weekend

and then I come back, that is probably the worst thing. But that

is not too bad, I don't think anyone really feels sorry for me that I had

to go to China a few weeks ago the Washington! Even the worst things

are pretty good. What would you say the toughest day in your job has

been so far? The toughest day was the overnight morning of the

referendum. The reason that was a tough day was not because of the

result but because we had put in place a bunch of plans, so we had

planned for either outcome but in order to make sure those plans

worked, we had to have a huge and amber of people coordinate with

people but here in the UK and people who do I types of job around the

world and ensure that everyone did the right thing at the right time so

that nobody noticed any ripples as a result of it. That was tough because

you have what we call execution error, you have a plan but you have

to put it in place and there is always concerned that it won't work

perfectly, you haven't anticipated everything or somehow you just want

X equate -- executed the way it is. Would you see is what? Yes,

definitely because everything I said about money that was supposed to

happen happened and people did move on from there. This question is from

Caitlin, aged 16. If you could give advice to your younger self,

financial advice, what would it be? I cast my mind back, I would have

taken a portion of the money I saved, because I always dry to save

something of what I earned, even as a discipline, and I would have taken

some of that money and I would have put it in some sort of equity funds,

something that wasn't just a poor savings vehicle. My younger self

ended up owing a lot of money through student loans so is became

more about paying back those loans but it is not a bad thing when you

are young to have something that will grow that has higher risk but

you've got a long life so you can ride out that risk. Did you make any

mistakes with money when you were younger? Yes, of course. I didn't

follow my advice all the time of when you get a gift, don't spend it

all right away. I didn't always shop around for the best deal on an

interest rate or on a loan. I lost money lots of times. By the way, we

need all those fibres back! Just kidding. We have had lots of

questions about Brexit which is a shorthand way of saying the UK

exiting the European Union after Britain voted to leave in June. Next

question please. How are you made aware of the Brexit result and what

was your first thought? I was aware, I took a two hour nap until about

12:30 in the morning and then I started watching the results and the

plan, we had a plan for the referendum night and the plan was

that I and others would come into the office around three in the

morning. There was a bunch of people who worked on a market side because

we monitored the markets and they were there all through the night so

I came in at about 3:30 and like every body else, I didn't have any

special information, just as the polls were being reported on the

BBC, I could see where the result was coming. My reaction was to make

sure that the big, fat plan that we had, but that was being put in place

and making sure everyone was doing what they needed to do, including I

knew that I would likely have to make a statement in the morning and

still I give a little bit more thought to what I was going to say

than I had in the days in the run-up when I made a draft. You talked

about it being the toughest day in your job so far, is that because you

work at a size to attacking sides at the time? Not at all. The concern

was really just about getting it right. The referendum could have

gone either way, that is why you have these thoughts. It is

absolutely our responsibility to be prepared for these types of

contingencies. Had everybody in the world, in the financial world,

focused on this event and we had to get it right. I felt a trim 's

responsibility to make sure that we had prepared properly and that we

executed as well as possible. That is a stream. It is interesting and

exciting and important and I think we did absolutely get it right but

it was a tough day because it is like a big game, is exciting but

also tough. The next question comes from James. I would like to ask,

which country outside of the U do you see us boast trading allies post

Brexit and from your experience, which country is at the best to do

business with and why? The first thing to say is that one of the

tremendous things about this economy but centuries is that it has been

one of the most open economies in the world. In this region you think

about jaguar, Land Rover and the aerospace industry, it has a huge

history of great exporting dummies. Most countries want to trade with

the UK. There are a number of countries, including my home country

of Canada, and Australia who I am quite confident will want to have

deeper trading relationships with the UK because of what the UK has to

offer in business and services and manufacturing and design and

culture, influence of services. So the opportunity is very large. The

other thing I will say is, one of the things that is exciting about

technology and where the global economy is going is that trade is no

longer limited to just big firms or even a medium-sized firms. You can

be a small firm, three or five people based here and you can sell

around the world. That is increasingly going to be the case.

That is tremendously exciting and it should be exciting for love you but

it really plays to the strengths of the UK because this is a really

truly innovative country. If you had to pick one the country? Well,

Canada, clearly! Let's move on. Amy has a question next. Max wants to

know if Scotland was to become an independent country, would be still

be able to use the pound sterling? If Scotland remained in the EU? This

was a big issue if years ago when there was an independence referendum

in Scotland and one of the challenges which was part of the

debate, it is a technical issue but a really important issue, is that in

order to share a currency, so for Scotland to continue as an

independent country, if it wanted to continue to share the pound

sterling, you need to share some degree of your sovereignty so you

cannot be fully independent and have a stable currency union. So there is

a tension between the two and part of the reason for that, there is a

variety of economic reasons but part of the reason for that goes back to

the fourth thing I talked about in terms of money and what the Bank of

England dolls and that is about making sure the banks are secure and

stable because it is much harder to ensure that is the case if you share

a currency but don't have some fiscal arrangement or common flows

of money across the government level. I am going to speed up a

little bit. This question is from J next. I am 13. My question is, who

is easier to work with, David Cameron or Theresa May? I am so glad

he asked that! They are both very professional, incredibly easy to

work with, but focused on making the country better. That holds that the

Chancellor is that I have worked with, both here and in Canada. These

individuals have a lot of pressure on them but they are trying to do

the right thing and trying to do it in a way that when they cut across

what I do, in a way that is based on the facts and the best judgments.

Does that answer your question? It does? Good. Dream job? It can't be

the one you're doing? Ice hockey goalkeeper. But to the problem is

your guilty pleasure? British big. Most expensive luxury you have ever

bought? Pass, I can't think. Favourite film? Phillip Lee.

Favourite food? V. How much money have you on you right now? I have a

new fibre in my pocket but about 40 quid in my back. Spender or Sabre?

At the moment, favour. These are coming in from all over the UK. Cats

or dogs? Dogs me but I have a cat! Football or ice hockey? Right now,

football definitely. It is incredibly important that you know

the personalities in sport. Scatter or Craig David? But UK artists. I

can't pretend to know that. Sadly, that is all we have time for. BBC

News School report gives young people across the UK the chance to

engage with the news and get involved and share their stories. If

you want to find out more, go to the website. On behalf of all BBC news

reporters here and across the UK, we would like to see a very big thank

you to Mark Carney forgetting all of your