Two out of the nine members of the Bank of England\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted to raise interest rates in August, the first time in three years that policymakers have not been unanimous in keeping the rate as it is.<\/p>\n
The minutes of the most recent meeting show that Ian McCafferty and Martin Weale voted for a quarter of a percentage point rise, which would take rates from their historic low of 0.5 per cent, where they have been for six years, to 0.75 per cent.<\/p>\n
On the back of the news the pound jumped in expectation that rates may rise sooner than expected, with sterling rising by 0.2 per cent against the US dollar to $1.66.<\/p>\n
However, it slipped back during the day, ending up at just 0.03 per cent against the dollar, at around $1.662. The pound had already slipped earlier in the week when official statistics showing relatively weak price pressures were released.<\/p>\n
The minutes showed that, despite low wage growth, both Mr Weale and Mr McCafferty felt that rapidly falling unemployment made it more likely that salaries would pick up in the coming months.<\/p>\n
However, both members made the argument that wages may not rise until spare capacity in the labour market, which is the Bank\u2019s current measure of the extent to which the economy is underperforming, was fully used up. They also suggested an early interest rate rise was desirable as a way of anticipating inflationary pressures from wage rises.<\/p>\n
The question on when or if rates will rise has divided economists, with some arguing they should go up and others, such as the British Chambers of Commerce, saying that a tighter policy would be a premature move and would hurt business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two out of the nine members of the Bank of England\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted to raise interest rates in August, the first time in three years that policymakers have not been unanimous in keeping the rate as it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions\/398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bainesjewitt.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}