Andrew Tyrie MP, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, has criticised the Bank of England for failing to release documents related to the financial crisis.

In March, the Committee requested information from the Bank’s internal review of the financial crisis and the minutes from its meetings.

Mr Tyrie said the Committee was “not able to perform its task of holding the conduct of the Bank and the Court to account unless we are given sight of the withheld documents.”

While the Bank provided the review with ‘Tripartite lessons from Northern Rock’, it failed to provide the Committee with any minutes.

The reason given by David Lee, chairman of the Court at the Bank of England, was that “My principal concern relates to the issue of putting records of private meetings into the public domain in circumstances where participants were entitled to assume the view they expressed would not become public.

“If there is no space for private deliberation, it is likely that views will not be expressed frankly or appropriate records will not be made and kept.”

He also stated that Bank documents were excluded from the Freedom of Information Act.

Mr Tyrie said: “I have been disappointed at the responses we received from the Court to our requests for information. It is unsatisfactory to say the least that the Court should be using the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act as a reason not to provide Parliament with information.

“The Court’s response is a reflection of the problem which the Committee’s inquiry into the accountability of the Bank of England has been seeking to address.”

A report on the accountability of the Bank will be published in the next few weeks.