BoE's Bailey welcomes Warsh as Trump's choice to lead U.S. Fed

LONDON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey on Thursday welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump's choice of former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to head the U.S. central bank when Jerome Powell's leadership term ends in May.

"I welcome the nomination of Kevin Warsh. I've known Kevin for a long time," Bailey told a press conference in his first public remarks on the topic.

Bailey has spoken out previously on the importance of the Federal Reserve retaining its independence over setting interest rates and of his support for Powell after Trump repeatedly called on him to slash rates and the Department of Justice threatened him with a criminal probe.

Bailey indicated that these comments should not be read as any criticism of Warsh.

"I just want to entirely separate things that I've said ... in the context of Jay Powell and things I say about Kevin Warsh. This is not a Jay versus Kevin thing.... I know both of them very well. They're both very qualified," he added.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde also said on Thursday that she welcomed Warsh's nomination.

Warsh was a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011, and he saw off other Fed officials and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett to win Trump's backing.

Warsh's appointment is still subject to approval by the U.S. Senate Banking Committee.

He is familiar with the BoE where he led a review in 2014 aimed at boosting the transparency and accountability of the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee, while retaining scope for private deliberations.

Following the report, the BoE under then-Governor Mark Carney began publishing minutes of MPC discussions at the same time as the policy decision, rather than with a delay, and reduced the frequency of its meetings to eight a year from 12.