The political classes seem incapable of understanding why we have so many boom bust inflationary cycles. I want more MPs to be demanding a change of policy by the Bank so we can have a growth policy with lower tax rates and better funded core public services.

It is no accident or external force which gave us an inflation in 1975. It was the  Bank conducting a policy called competition and credit control badly leading to fast money growth and a secondary banking crisis. In 1977 it was an overspending over borrowing Labour government which ended with a humiliating trip to the IMF to bail us out.

In 1990-92 it was Bank and Treasury policy to put us into the European Exchange rate mechanism which ballooned the money supply backed by PM Major and gave us more inflation.

In 2007-9 it was Bank and Labour government policy to allow commercial banks to lend much more which led to inflation, egged on by high public spending and borrowing.

In 2023-4 the inflation came from Bank Quantitative easing and a big boost to the money supply.

In each case the Bank over corrected  for its errors pushing us into recession.

Why doesn’t the Bank learn from  this string of errors and give better advice?

The Commons is being offered a free vote on the introduction of a smoking ban. Over many years the ban would gradually extend from young people to older people.

I have received little feedback on this topic. I am interested to hear from constituents who have strong views either way on this proposal. I would like to take into account constituency opinion before voting.

Let’s start with some agreement. I agree the Bank needs to improve its forecasting and the  communication of its findings.

I do not agree that all Central Banks made worse forecasts over covid and Ukraine. Mr Bernanke seems to ignore China, Japan and Switzerland who kept inflation down despite the swings of oil and food prices. Their forecasts remained nearer the mark.

I do not agree that more highly paid people and more spending will provide the answer. The Bank has a lot of intelligent well qualified people. They need to correct their errors and change their thinking. The models need improving, but they have the people to do that.

It would be a good idea for a Monetary Policy Committee to look at the quantity of money being created and the velocity of circulation, and to provide comment, if only to say they have a good reasons to think creating lots of money will not be inflationary or destroying lots of money will not be recessionary so others can challenge this. Those outside the Bank that did look at the ballooning of the Bank balance sheet and money supply and warned it could prove inflationary got the forecast right even if the Bank is still sure they got the reason wrong. It would be better to have this argument around the MPC table. Why did the MPC who think inflation comes from other sources not manage to predict what happened? The MPC itself needs greater diversity of economic thought. Having someone on it who got the inflation outlook right in recent years would be a good start.

It is also a big disappointment that Mr Bernanke did not consider the impact of the waxing and waning balance sheet of the Bank. Decisions about the bond buying and selling need careful consideration as well as the interest rates. Their strong connection to public finances is also important for their impact on the economy.

The UK public sector is letting many people down and upsetting a lot of voters. Opposition parties in Parliament are good at criticising. They blame Ministers, as our system invites them to do. Opposition parties fail to ask why so many of the failures are in so called independent bodies with highly paid public sector chiefs paid many times a Minister. They  claim just small extra sums – compared to the huge extra  sums this government has tipped in – would make all the difference.

If only. If extra money would bring the NHS  waiting  lists down or would fix the Post Office and the railway things should be improving well by now. Ministers have tried this. Any Conservative MP will vote for a few extra billions of spending if it could deliver the end of waiting lists, good border control or a new railway line on time and to budget. We have often so voted.

There are three obvious flaws in our current governing structure, all undermining the power of Ministers to act whilst leaving them to blame. The first is independent bodies.

1. Independent bodies that get things hopelessly wrong. There is the Bank of England delivering 11% inflation whilst forecasting 2%. There is the Bank delivering recession and huge bond losses.

There is the nationalised Post Office putting honest sub postmasters into prison  for its own bungled computer system, whilst losing taxpayers £1400 m and turning the PO into a bankrupt company surviving on big state subsidy.

There is HS 2, a nationalised company, trebling the cost of a new railway line and failing to deliver it on time.

There is the Board of NHS England denying the strikes of its employees are anything to with the highly paid managers who employ and roster them .

There is the Environment Agency and Ofwat failing to get the industry to put in enough reservoir capacity for a rising population or sufficient drainage capacity to keep us dry.

There is UK Government Investments charging us their big salaries to supervise the state ownership of the Post Office and most of the railway, who leave the huge losses and bad management unchallenged. They have approved large CEO salaries and bonuses to leave both these industries only able to trade with guaranteed payments of all the losses by taxpayers.

I have urged Ministers to insist on an annual budget meeting with each nationalised industry themselves to approve policy and targets, and an annual end of year meeting to discuss results  and the draft annual report. A badly run industry, missing targets, should be put on a tougher regime  of regular in year reviews. CEOs should not get bonuses for large losses and underperformance should lead to the sack where warnings are ignored and improvement plans fail.

It is a crucial part of our Parliamentary democracy that we do ultimately  hold government Ministers to blame for the many failings of public services and public bodies. We also expect government to intervene or to change the law when the private sector and or too many individuals miscarry.

I still believe  in that system. I fully understand why government gets the blame when inflation goes too high, but note that an independent Bank of England is responsible for inflation and brought high inflation on. There are so many areas now where government is blamed but in practice the decisions and budgets rest with independent bodies, or where national and international law and judges prevent Ministers carrying out what they want to do. There are even cases where Ministers change the law but are still thwarted by activist courts.

I will explore how far this removal of power has gone, how many of the independent bodies are behaving badly or incompetently, and how courts and treaties prevent Ministers implementing  the public will. As many blame Ministers, Ministers need to take back powers to solve the problems the current system fails to resolve or make worse. The doctrine of independent bodies is doing plenty of damage, from the Post Office to the railways, from Ofwat to the Bank of England. The EHCR stops us controlling our borders  and the WHO which had a bad covid pandemic wants more powers to control the NHS.