AS ULTIMAS DE DOWN STREET

September 19, 2008
Ensuring economic stability

This has been an incredibly difficult week on the world's financial markets and, unsurprisingly, people are worried about how these events affect them and their families.

I know that across the country people are finding it difficult, with energy, food and fuel all costing more, and falling house prices causing uncertainty. That is why we have recently announced £1 billion of support for homeowners and the housing market and another £1 billion of help for families to save money by saving energy, with a national energy efficiency campaign launched this week. Following concerted action at an international level, oil prices have begun to fall and there are signs that this is being reflected on the forecourts too. We are working hard to reduce our dependence on imported oil and increase our use of alternative energy sources like renewables and nuclear.

But we are currently facing a unique combination of international circumstances that affect people not just here in Britain but in America and across the world.

This is a global phenomenon that will require a truly global solution, so as well as working hard with other countries to try to reduce volatility in oil markets, I am also working to get a better international system of regulation of world financial markets. But we also need to act domestically.

Quite simply, I am committed to doing whatever is necessary to ensure a stable financial system and protect our shared prosperity. We showed this when we acted on Northern Rock - ensuring that no depositor lost out.

This week we have taken action to enable the Lloyds/HBOS merger to move forward. Yesterday, the Financial Services Authority acted decisively to ban short selling, and today the US authorities have taken similar action.

We are now working with our international partners to get the coordinated action will we need in order to restore confidence to the global banking system. Central banks, including the Bank of England and European Central Bank, have joined together to provide liquidity for the system, and I have been talking to President Sarkozy about some of the measures that the European Union can take together.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is also close contact with the US Treasury Secretary about how we can work together to deal with the common problems that we face, and in a statement this afternoon Secretary Paulson set out the steps that the US is now taking to increase confidence in the system.

I believe we have taken the right action to help families and businesses to get through these difficult times. We have provided extra, targeted support for those who need it most, and we will continue to act quickly and decisively to safeguard the stability of our financial system over the weeks and months ahead.

Gordon Brown