Economic recovery proves QE working, says Paul Tucker Mr Tucker said politicians should hold a public debate on whether to hand the Bank of England the power to intervene directly in the mortgage market if house prices start to spiral out of control. Last year, the Bank asked Parliament to consider giving its financial stability arm the ability to ban buyers with small deposits from taking out a mortgage to deflate a housing bubble. The request for a response from politicians was never taken up, though. Mr Tucker said: "We thought this is something that warrants public debate. There hasn't been [any] really. Not of the kind that I suppose we'd hoped for. We said we're not asking for these powers, because we think it might be a step too far in terms of the legitimacy of an unelected body. If the politicians thought we ought to have those powers they could generate the public debate. One almost infers that they don't think that. Any suggestion of enhancing the Financial Policy Committee's (FPC) powers comes at a sensitive time for the Chancellor, who is fending off accusations that his Help to Buy mortgage guarantee scheme is already stoking a bubble. House prices rose 3.8pc to a record high of £247,000 in the year to August, the Office for National Statistics revealed last week. George Osborne is hoping the policy will lift growth by fuelling house building and household spending. The Government is unlikely to want to give the Bank the power to set loan-to-value (LTV) or loan-to-income (LTI) limits, though. Doing so would potentially undermine Help to Buy, which is targeted at buyers with small deposits. The Bank can already recommend regulators set LTV or LTI caps, but a power of direction from the independent FPC would make it harder for politicians to intervene. However, Mr Tucker stressed that the FPC was "not chomping at the bit to get that [power]" . He added that the risk to financial stability would come from a surge in household borrowing and urged his colleagues on the FPC to be alert to the threat of a property-led debt binge.