Bank of England deputy governor Ben Broadbent says “no urgency” to raise rates; would be “foolish” to pre-announce interest rate hike date
Bank of England (BoE) deputy governor Ben Broadbent has played down expectation that there could be a rate rise by the end of 2015.
Mark Carney's second-in-command this morning said his boss's speech "did not say we can expect a rate rise around the turn of the year", adding it was "impossible" and "foolish" to pre-announce the date of an interest rate rise.
"The economy clearly is recovering … but we had the most almighty financial crisis and there is still a bit of spare capacity left," Broadbent told BBC Radio 5 Live. "There is not that much inflationary pressure at the moment, [although] we expect that to build over time. But as I saw it … there isn't any urgency to raise interest rates right now".
Broadbent stressed Bank of England governor Carney's previous comments that the rate decision would come into sharper focus around the end of this year had been misinterpreted.
He added: "It's the job of policy to respond to unpredictable events as best we can to stabilise the economy. We are responding to things that are essentially … unpredictable,"
Read more: Ex-MPC member says next rate move should be down
"That means it would not just be impossible it would be foolish to pre-announce some fixed date of interest rate changes."
His comments come a day after rate-setters struck a surprisingly dovish note in a set of minutes and quarterly inflation report published yesterday. Economists expected at least two members of the monetary policy committee to break ranks and vote for an interest rate rise for the first time this year – but in the end only hawk Ian McCafferty struck out alone.