Chancellor Alistair Darling has pulled out of attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos on the same day that the Bank of England and the Treasury launched a £50 billion asset buying scheme to help stabilise the British banking and boost the economy.

A spokeswoman for the Treasury confirmed that Mr Darling would not be going to the event, and had been due to fly to the WEF earlier this week. It also emerged today that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has also pulled out of Davos.

A spokesman for the Treasury said it was decided that since a number of people Mr Darling had been due to meet had pulled out of Davos, his time would be better spent doing other things. The spokesman refused to reveal who Mr Darling had been due to meet.

Earlier this week, Bob Diamond, president at Barclays decided not to attend while John Thain, the former head of Merrill Lynch, who was ousted last week as president of global banking at Bank of America, will not be at the forum.

Other absentees include Vikram Pandit, the chief executive of Citigroup, the embattled US bank, and Richard Fuld, the former chief executive of the collapsed Lehman Brothers Holdings, whose annual lecture at Davos has been cancelled.

Mr Darling's absence from Davos emerged as the Chancellor and Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, confirmed that the Bank will set out next week the framework in which its planned Asset Purchase Facility will operate.

The news follows Mr Darling’s announcement, last week, of a fresh package of proposals aimed at reviving economic activity and takes Britain closer towards so-called "quantitative easing" — effectively printing money.

The policy is similar to that undertaken by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan during the last few months.

In his letter, Mr Darling cleared the Bank to buy up some £50 billion worth of “high-quality private sector assets” and promised that the Government would indemnify the Bank against any losses arising from the purchases.

He confirmed that the buying would be funded by gilts and Treasury bills — Government IOUs — and said the Bank would need to be convinced that there was a “viable private market demand” for the types of assets it buys.

This does not, technically, count as printing money because the sums involved will effectively be borrowed from other individuals and institutions lending money to the Government.

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