The Bank of England are to hold interest rates at 5.25%, one member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) have voted to cut them.
The BoE did signal that they are moving closer to lowering interest rates, they said, “Six members (Andrew Bailey, Sarah Breeden, Ben Broadbent, Megan Greene, Huw Pill and Dave Ramsden) voted in favour of the proposition.
“Three members voted against the proposition. Two members (Jonathan Haskel and Catherine L Mann) preferred to increase Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, to 5.5%.
“One member (Swati Dhingra) preferred to reduce Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, to 5%.”
The Bank also said they are expecting inflation to hit 2% in the second quarte before it rises again in the second half of the year.
The Bank said, “the persistence of domestic inflationary pressures,” adding, “CPI inflation is projected to be 2.3% in two years and 1.9% in three years.”
Allan Monks, a UK economist for JP Morgan, said, “The Bank of England’s updated narrative is likely to be that clear progress is being made on inflation, but that it is too early to declare victory and therefore caution must be exercised when thinking about when and how quickly policy can be normalised.”
