Bank of England keeps rates at 5%

September 19, 2024 (MLN): The Bank of England held interest rates at 5.0% on Thursday and voted to reduce the stock of UK government bond purchases by £100 billion over the next 12 months

The Monetary Policy Committee voted 8-1 to maintain Bank Rate at 5%. One member preferred to reduce Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, to 4.75%.

To note, BoE last month delivered its first reduction to borrowing costs since 2020.

Monetary policy decisions have been guided by the need to squeeze persistent inflationary pressures out of the system so as to return CPI inflation to the 2% target both in a timely manner and on a lasting basis, it said in a statement.

Policy has been acting to ensure that inflation expectations remain well anchored. As set out at the time of the August Monetary Policy Report, the Committee’s deliberations have been supported by the consideration of a range of cases, to which different probabilities and different risks can be attached, it said.

In the first case, the unwinding of the global shocks that drove up inflation and the resulting fall in headline inflation should continue to feed through to weaker pay and price-setting dynamics.

The persistence of inflationary pressures would therefore dissipate with a less restrictive stance of monetary policy than in other cases.

In the second case, a period of economic slack, in which GDP falls below potential and the labour market eases further, may be required in order for pay and price-setting dynamics to normalise fully.

Domestic inflationary persistence would then be expected to fade away, owing to the opening up of slack from a more restrictive stance of monetary policy relative to the first case.

In the third case, the economy may be subject to structural shifts such as changes in wage and price-setting following the major supply shocks experienced over recent years.

The degree of restrictiveness of monetary policy may be less than embodied in the Committee’s latest assessment, meaning that monetary policy would have to remain tighter for longer.

Since the MPC’s previous meeting, global activity growth has continued at a steady pace, although some data outturns suggest greater uncertainty around the near-term outlook.

Oil prices have fallen back, reflecting in large part weaker demand. Market-implied paths for policy rates across major advanced economies have declined.

There has generally been limited news in UK economic indicators relative to the Committee’s expectations in the August Monetary Policy Report.

Headline GDP growth is expected to return to its underlying pace of around 0.3% per quarter in the second half of the year.

Twelve-month CPI inflation was 2.2% in August, and is expected to increase to around 2½% towards the end of this year as declines in energy prices last year fall out of the annual comparison.

Services consumer price inflation remained elevated at 5.6% in August. Private sector regular average weekly earnings growth declined to 4.9% in the three months to July.

At this meeting, the Committee voted to maintain Bank Rate at 5%.

In the absence of material developments, a gradual approach to removing policy restraint remains appropriate.

Monetary policy said it will need to continue to remain restrictive for sufficiently long until the risks to inflation returning sustainably to the 2% target in the medium term have dissipated further.

The Committee said it continues to monitor closely the risks of inflation persistence and will decide the appropriate degree of monetary policy restrictiveness at each meeting.

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