Would a generous PBR prevent further rate cuts?

The Bank of England’s MPC – which sets interest rates – agreed two weeks ago to slash rates by 150 basis points to 3 per cent: their lowest level for half a century.

The minutes of that meeting, out today, suggest that members believe more cuts are needed. Interesting to note however they agreed ”it would make sense…to reassess the required scale of monetary easing after the Chancellor’s pre-Budget report”.

In other words, the bigger the fiscal stimulus, the less the interest rate cuts. That is certainly how some economists are interpreting it today.

Westminster blog

on the UK political scene

About this blog Blog guide
Jim Pickard and Kiran Stacey, FT Westminster correspondents, share the latest news and analysis on the UK's political scene.

Follow the latest news on the UK coalition government.

To comment, please register for free with FT.com and read our policy on submitting comments.

All posts are published in UK time.

Contact the Westminster blog team: Jim Pickard, Kiran Stacey, Nicholas Timmins, Elizabeth Rigby and Helen Warrell.

The illustrations of Jim and Kiran are by Nick Hardcastle.

See the full list of FT blogs.

The authors

Jim Pickard joined the lobby team in January 2008. He has been at the Financial Times since 1999 as a regional correspondent, assistant UK news editor and property correspondent.

Kiran Stacey is an FT political correspondent, having joined the lobby in 2011. He started at the FT as a graduate trainee in 2008, working on desks including UK companies and US equity markets before taking over the FT's Energy Source blog.

Contributors

Elizabeth Rigby, the FT's chief political correspondent, joined the lobby team in September 2010. Elizabeth has worked at the FT for more than a decade and was most recently its consumer industries editor.

Helen Warrell is the FT's UK reporter, covering home affairs, crime and policing. She joined the FT in 2008 and has spent time as a reporter in the Brussels bureau and more recently, editing the paper's Asia coverage on the world news desk.

Archive

« Oct Dec »November 2008
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930