Bank of England holds interest rates at 0.5%

The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has voted 8-1 to keep interest rates at 0.5 per cent
The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee has voted 8-1 to keep interest rates at 0.5 per cent
PA

The Bank of England kept interest rates on hold at the record low of 0.5 per cent once again, with Ian McCafferty remaining the only member to vote for an increase.

The Bank’s nine-strong Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted by a majority of 8-1 to keep rates at 0.5 per cent, where they have stood still since the depths of the downturn in 2009. The committee voted unanimously to maintain Quantitative Easing at £375 billion.

Mr McCafferty, an external member, voted to lift rates by 25 basis points to 0.75 per cent, given his view that building domestic cost pressures were likely to come to outweigh the dampening influence of the appreciation of sterling, causing inflation to overshoot the 2 per cent target in the