Catalogue description Capital Issues Committee: Minutes and Papers

The Capital Issues Committees was appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer by a Treasury Minute of 12 September 1939 with the following terms of reference:

"To consider and advise upon applications made to the Treasury for consent to the issue of capital to the public, offer of securities for sale or to the renewal or postponement of the maturity date of securities for sale, in accordance with the provisions of Regulation 6 of the Defence (Finance) Regulations 1939".

The committee was the successor of and had the same membership as the Foreign Transactions Advisory Committee appointed by the Chancellor in 1936. The chairman was Lord Kennet and when he retired in 1959, Sir Thomas Frazer succeeded him.

Regulation 6 was replaced by the Control of Borrowing Order 1947, a Treasury Order made under Section 1 of the Borrowing (Control and Guarantees) Act 1946. The last Treasury Order under the Act was the Control of Borrowing Order 1958.

A General Consent under that Order was issued in 1959, which suspended the main provision of the Order insofar as it affected domestic borrowing and domestic issue of shares and securities, so the committee's function was only to advise on applications by persons resident outside the UK. The administration of these applications was eventually assimilated into that of Exchange Control and the Voluntary Programme in 1967 when a further Treasury Order was made.

The committee was dissolved in 1967 but this did not affect the policy governing the control exercised by the Treasury under the Control of Borrowing Order 1958 (as amended by the Order of 1967) but applications for consent under this Order was sent to the Bank of England.