The committee is responsible for formulating the United Kingdom's monetary policy, most commonly via the setting of the rate at it which it lends to banks (officially the Bank of England Base Rate or BOEBR for short). As laid out in law, decisions are made with a primary aim of price stability, defined by the government's inflation target (2% per year on the Consumer Price Index as of 2016). The target takes the form of a "point", rather than the "band" used by the Treasury prior to 1997. The secondary aim of the committee is to support the government's economic policies, and help it meet its targets for growth and employment. That secondary aim was reinforced by then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in his March 2013 budget, with the MPC given more discretion to more openly "trade off" above-rate inflation in the medium run to boost other economic indicators. The MPC is not responsible for fiscal policy, which is handled by the Treasury itself, but is briefed by the Treasury about fiscal policy developments at meetings.