Speaking to Parliament's Treasury Select Committee on Tuesday, Sir Edward said he thought price rises would moderate "to zero, or maybe minus a bit in some parts of the country in the next couple of years".
In Poland, news channel TVN24 on Sunday quoted police as saying 47 Poles, mainly homeless people, had been found frozen to death since the start of December as temperatures dropped as low as minus 18 degrees Celsius (about zero degrees Fahrenheit).
Without such intervention net new mortgage lending - gross new home loans minus repayments and redemptions - would fall below zero in 2009 and see only a modest recovery in 2010, he said.