The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) remains split on whether to raise the UK’s base interest rate.
The minutes from the last MPC meeting, released today, showed that 7 members voted to keep the base rate at its record low of 0.5 per cent, while two members voted to raise the rate by 0.25 per cent.
The split was the same as the previous MPC meeting and the same two members, Ian McCafferty and Martin Weale, voted to raise the rate.
Samuel Tombs, senior UK economist at Capital Economics, said the overall tone of the minutes was “dovish”, which refers to the desire to keep rates low and monetary policy loose.
Mr Toombs said: “The committee pointed to evidence suggesting that the recovery might slow in Q4 and argued that the eurozone’s growing malaise meant that ‘the downside risks to UK growth in the medium term had probably increased’.”
Mr Toombs also said the focus from the MPC on the weakness in inflation meant that the “chances of a 2014 rate hike now look slim”.
