Brexit Uncertainty Hurt Investment in U.K., BOE’s Haskel Says

(Bloomberg) --

Bank of England policy maker Jonathan Haskel said uncertainty over Britain’s exit from the European Union held back business investment in the U.K.

Speaking to a Resolution Foundation event, Haskel said business needs a more stable policy framework to spur the investments needed to increase productivity in the economy. 

“One thing that did not help in investment was, of course, Brexit, and all of the agonies and so forth around the process of Brexit,” Haskel said Monday. “From an economic point of view, all the uncertainty that led up to that, the series of cliff edges around the negotiation of the withdrawal agreement, were really bad for investment.”

The comments come amid tensions between the U.K. and the EU over Northern Ireland. The U.K. is threatening to suspend parts of the Brexit deal unless the trade arrangements it agreed to are fundamentally re-written. 

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