MORE than 50 cross-party MPs and peers have written to Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey encouraging him to align British finance with the government’s climate goals ahead of the Cop26 international climate summit.

The letter recommends that the bank uses the new green mandate given to it by the Treasury to help steer billions of pounds of finance away from risky fossil fuel investments and towards green, job-creating alternatives.

The signatories warn that climate change and biodiversity loss are already jeopardising the bank’s ability to meet its core objectives. They urge Mr Bailey to put its new green remit into practice “in a manner commensurate with the scale and urgency of the challenges we are facing.”