Pound sterling
[24][25] In the British pre-decimal (duodecimal) currency system, the term £sd (or Lsd) for pounds, shillings and pence referred to the Roman libra, solidus, and denarius.[37] The currency of all the Crown Dependencies (Guernsey, Jersey, Isle of Man) and a third of British Overseas Territories (British Antarctic Territory;[40][41] Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; Gibraltar; and Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha)[42] is either sterling or pegged to sterling at par.Various coin denominations had, and in some cases continue to have, special names, such as florin (2/–), crown (5/–), farthing (1⁄4d), sovereign (£1) and guinea (21s, 21/–, £1–1–0 or £1.05 in decimal notation).[55] During the reign of King Edward III, the introduction of gold coins received from Flanders as payment for English wool provided substantial economic and trade opportunities but also unsettled the currency for the next 200 years.[46]: 361 The last significant depreciation in sterling's silver standard occurred amidst the 16th century influx of precious metals from the Americas arriving through the Habsburg Netherlands.[citation needed] This effect was notably driven by trade with the Far East, as the Chinese insisted on payments for their exports being settled in silver.An Act of the Parliament of England in 1697 tried to stem this tide by raising the minimum acceptable fineness on wrought plate from sterling's 92.5% to a new Britannia silver standard of 95.83%.Silver and copper tokens issued by private entities partly relieved the problem of small change until the Great Recoinage of 1816.[80] The British government under Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Chancellor of the Exchequer Austen Chamberlain tried to make up for the deficit with a deflationary policy, but this only led to the Depression of 1920–21.John Benjamin Smith, MP for Stirling Burghs, raised the issue of full decimalisation again in Parliament in 1853,[90] resulting in the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Gladstone, announcing soon afterwards that "the great question of a decimal coinage" was "now under serious consideration".[94] However, sterling was decimalised in various British colonial territories before the United Kingdom (and in several cases in line with William Brown's proposal that the pound be divided into 1,000 parts, called mils).[100] Financial markets were beginning to believe the pound was overvalued, and in April that year The Wall Street Journal advised the sale of sterling investments in the face of high taxes, in a story that ended with "goodbye, Great Britain.[85] Callaghan was told there were three possible outcomes: a disastrous free fall in sterling, an internationally unacceptable siege economy, or a deal with key allies to prop up the pound while painful economic reforms were put in place.The US Government feared the crisis could endanger NATO and the European Economic Community (EEC), and in light of this, the US Treasury set out to force domestic policy changes.In November 1976, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced the conditions for a loan, including deep cuts in public expenditure.Initially, sterling rocketed, moving above £1 to US$2.40, as interest rates rose in response to the monetarist policy of targeting money supply.[103] In 1988, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, decided that sterling should "shadow" the Deutsche Mark (DM), with the unintended result of a rapid rise in inflation as the economy boomed due to low interest rates.[104] Following German reunification in 1990, the reverse held true, as high German borrowing costs to fund Eastern reconstruction, exacerbated by the political decision to convert the Ostmark to the D–Mark on a 1:1 basis, meant that interest rates in other countries shadowing the D–Mark, especially the UK, were far too high relative to domestic circumstances, leading to a housing decline and recession.On 8 October 1990 the Conservative government (Third Thatcher ministry) decided to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), with £1 set at DM 2.95.However, the country was forced to withdraw from the system on "Black Wednesday" (16 September 1992) as Britain's economic performance made the exchange rate unsustainable.[citation needed] In 1997, the newly elected Labour government handed over day-to-day control of interest rates to the Bank of England (a policy that had originally been advocated by the Liberal Democrats).[108] The Bank is now responsible for setting its base rate of interest so as to keep inflation (as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI)) very close to 2% per annum.Accordingly, and for the first time, the Governor had to write publicly to the UK Government explaining why inflation was more than one percentage point higher than its target.[109] In 2007, Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, ruled out membership in the eurozone for the foreseeable future, saying that the decision not to join had been right for Britain and for Europe.On 5 March 2009, the Bank of England announced that it would pump £75 billion of new capital into the British economy, through a process known as quantitative easing (QE).[125] The result of the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership caused a major decline in sterling against other world currencies as the future of international trade relationships and domestic political leadership became unclear.[131] After a number of years when inflation remained near or below the Bank's 2% target, 2021 saw a significant and sustained increase on all indices: as of November 2021[update], RPI had reached 7.1%, CPI 5.1% and CPIH 4.6%.UK notes include raised print (e.g. on the words "Bank of England"); watermarks; embedded metallic thread; holograms; and fluorescent ink visible only under UV lamps.[141] (Bank of England 10/– and £1 notes were legal tender, as were Scottish banknotes, during World War II under the Currency (Defence) Act 1939, which was repealed on 1 January 1946.)[150] However, they are maintained at a fixed exchange rate by their respective governments, and Bank of England notes have been made legal tender on the islands, forming a sort of one-way de facto currency union.
CPIH (CPI+OOH)
OOH
Owner occupied
housing inflation
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