The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) sets monetary policy to meet the 2% inflation target, and in a way that helps to sustain growth and employment.
At its meeting ending on 14 December 2022, the MPC voted by a majority of 6-3 to increase Bank Rate by 0.5 percentage points, to 3.5%. Two members preferred to maintain Bank Rate at 3%, and one member preferred to increase Bank Rate by 0.75 percentage points, to 3.75%.
In the MPC’s November Monetary Policy Report projections, conditioned on the elevated path of market interest rates at that time, the UK economy was expected to be in recession for a prolonged period and CPI inflation was expected to remain very high in the near term.
Inflation was expected to fall sharply from mid-2023 to some way below the 2% target in years two and three of the projection. This reflected a negative contribution from energy prices, as well as the emergence of an increasing degree of economic slack and a steadily rising unemployment rate. The risks around that declining path for inflation were judged to be to the upside.
Domestic wage and price pressures are elevated. There has been limited news in other domestic and global economic data relative to the November Report projections.
Most indicators of global supply chain bottlenecks have eased, but global inflationary pressures remain elevated.
Advanced-economy government bond yields have fallen, particularly at longer maturities. The sterling effective exchange rate has appreciated by around 2¾%.
There has been some reduction in UK fixed-term mortgage rates since the Committee’s previous meeting, but rates remain materially higher than in the summer.
Bank staff now expect UK GDP to decline by 0.1% in 2022 Q4, 0.2 percentage points stronger than expected in the November Report. Household consumption remains weak and most housing market indicators have continued to soften. Surveys of investment intentions have also weakened further.
