Kwasi Kwarteng blames Bank of England for high inflation and says his own mortgage payments have soared

Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, whose mini-budget last September is widely blamed for helping cause interest rates to rocket, has complained about the cost of his own mortgage going up.

However, in an interview with GB News on Sunday, Mr Kwarteng denied that he had been “screwed over” by his own economic policies after revealing his own tracker mortgage had gone up.

During the interview Mr Kwarteng said: “It’s probably revealing too much [but] I am on a tracker as well. They [his mortgage repayments] have gone up considerably.”

Presenter Camilla Tominey then asked Kwarteng, who was chancellor for just 38 days during Liz Truss’s short-lived residence in No10: “Are you saying you’ve been screwed by your own mini-budget?”

Mr Kwarteng replied: “No, not at all, because Camilla we are mixing two things.

“What I’m trying to say to you is that they’re two different things. The Bank of England was in charge of inflation and my tracker rate and other people’s tracker rates will be linked to the bank rate.

“And the reason why interest rates have gone up very high is because we’ve completely missed the goal on inflation, we’ve totally misjudged inflation.”

Asked if soaring interest rates were his fault, he said: “No, I don’t think it is. I think if you look at what’s been happening, inflation has been much higher for a lot longer than the Bank of England and others predicted.

“The Bank of England recognise themselves that they’ve got an issue here because they’ve hired Ben Bernanke, who is an American economist . . . I don’t know what he knows about the UK, but if you bring him in to look at your inflation models, something’s gone wrong.”

Mr Kwarteng added: “I think, in terms of the inflation and interest rates, I think there was a big fail in terms of working out where inflation might end up.”

During his short stay in the Treasury, Mr Kwarteng’s mini-budget was heavily criticised by financial institutions including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and the IMF, which balked at his plan for £45bn of unfunded tax cuts for wealthier households.

Mr Kwarteng and then-Prime Minister Ms Truss argued the tax cuts would catalyse economic growth, thereby paying for themselves.

However, the markets reacted poorly as the pound fell to its lowest-ever level against the dollar, and gilt prices collapsed.

In the four days following the mini-budget, long-dated government bond yields rose by more than the annual increase in 23 of the past 27 years.

“And what’s happened since certainly, since I’ve left office, is that the bank is trying to play catch up.”

Since December 2021 The Bank of England has raised interest rates 15 times. In the latest rise last Thursday, the base rate hit 5.25%.

Rising rates have increased the costs of millions of mortgage holders by thousands of pounds a year as high street banks raise lending rates.The same banks, however, have been criticised for not raising the interest rate on customer savings accounts.