BREXIT has left every household in Britain £900 worse off, according to the governor of the Bank of England. Mark Carney told MPs that real household incomes have paid the price of the UK’s GDP slumping by 2% since the EU referendum in 2016.

While there was no recession in the immediate aftermath of the vote to quit Europe, as Carney had predicted, the UK’s economy had not grown as fast as those of other countries.

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The tumbling pound has helped drive up inflation, and send the cost of importing food and fuel to Britain surging. At the same time, wage growth has remained weak, despite low levels of unemployment. Comparing the forecasts made by the bank before the referendum, prepared on the basis of a remain vote, to what had actually happened, Carney told MPs: “If you look at where the economy is today, relative to that forecast, it’s more than one per cent below where it was despite very large stimulus provided by the Bank of England, a fiscal easing by the government, and global and European economies, which are much, much stronger than they were previously.

“If you adjust for those factors, the economy is about one and three-quarters – one and half, one and three-quarters, up to two per cent – lower than it would have been. Real incomes are about £900 per household lower than we forecast in May of 2016, which is a lot of money.”

However, Carney did admit it was difficult to say Brexit was the sole reason for lower household incomes.

He told the Treasury Select Committee: “Over the course of the last year and a half, there has been an impact [from Brexit] relative to what we would’ve expected – even with some pretty good tailwinds at the back of this economy.”

The SNP’s Stewart Hosie, who sits on the committee, said this was proof that “Tory plans for a hard Brexit are already hitting families in the pocket, and leaving the whole of the UK poorer and worse off”.

Hosie added: “These stark warnings from the Bank of England governor underline the devastating impact Brexit will have on jobs, incomes and living standards for decades to come.

“Short of staying in the EU, as Scotland voted overwhelmingly in favour of, remaining in the single market is the only way to protect jobs and prosperity and avoid economic catastrophe.

“It is time for the Tories and Labour to ditch their damaging hard Brexit obsession and put the interests of the country first.”

Meanwhile, Carney also told MPs he thought a currency union between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK was possible. He was also asked if he believed a currency union required a political union.

Carney replied: “No, from the strict economics it doesn’t.”

Carney told the committee that he believed an effective currency union would include “an element of fiscal union” as well as “having a form of financial market union, banking union, capital market union - all the components that European monetary union is still trying to fully construct”.

SNP proposals for a currency union with the res of the UK after independence fell apart ahead of the 2014 referendum.