The National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the losses were the result of the chancellor’s failure to insure against the 900 900 billion in reserve interest rate hikes created through the Quantitative Impact (QE) program. The losses are said to be more than the Conservatives have accused former Chancellor Gordon Brown of losing when he sold some of the UK’s gold reserves at low prices. The institute’s director, Professor Jagjit Chadha, told the Financial Times that Sunak’s actions had left the country with “a huge bill and a lot of constant exposure to interest rate risk”. Labor said the losses were “astronomical” and accused the government of “playing fast and loose” with public finances. In response, the Treasury Department said it had a “clear funding strategy” to meet the government’s funding needs. According to the FT report, the Bank of England (BoE) raised 95 895 billion through the QE program, most of which was used to buy government bonds from pension funds and other investors. When these investors put the proceeds in commercial bank deposits with the BoG, the Bank had to pay interest at its official interest rate. Last year, when the official interest rate was still 0.1%, NIESR urged the government to insure the cost of servicing this debt against the risk of rising interest rates by turning it into longer-term government bonds. Chanta said they now estimated that Sunak’s failure to heed their advice – despite regularly warning of the dangers of higher inflation and interest rates on debt service costs – had cost taxpayers 11 11bn. The shadow finance minister, Tulip Siddiq, said: “These are astronomical sums that the chancellor has to lose and he leaves the workers to collect the check for his serious waste, while he raises their taxes in the midst of a cost of living crisis. A spokesman for the Treasury Department said: “There are long-term arrangements for facilitating the purchase of assets – to date 120 120 billion £ have been transferred to the HM Treasury and used to reduce our debt, but we always knew that at some point the direction of these payments may need to be reversed. “We have a clear financing strategy to meet the Government’s financing needs, which we have set independently of the Bank of England monetary policy decisions. It is up to the monetary policy committee to take decisions on quantitative easing to achieve the objectives of its mandate and we remain fully committed to their independence. “