Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

I will ask Ms Rowland to come in on this. We are very conscious, as I said in my statement, that the cost of living has impacted people and households. The financial system needs to play a role to support people through this. However, I do not think that interest rate caps would help in the end. For one thing, they would get in the way of tackling inflation. Inflation is the harm that we are all trying to fix and it would negate that. In addition, as the Deputy implied in his question, there are longer-term reasons in respect of interest rate caps. We do not have the power to control interest rates but I would not support caps. In the end, it is the financial institutions that need to manage risk and they understand their business and business models. By intervening, we would be taking ownership of that risk management, which would be problematic for everybody. Also, I think-----