Bank of England policymakers have kept interest rates on hold and left the bond-buying programme unchanged as they wait to see what will happen with the EU trade deal talks.
All of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee voted to keep interest rates at their historic low of 0.1 per cent at today’s meeting.
They did so as they warned the outlook for the economy remained ‘unusually uncertain’ and depended on the evolution of the pandemic, related restrictions as well as the outcome of talks with the EU.
On hold: The Bank of England has kept rates and quantitative easing unchanged
The Bank also left its bond-buying programme unchanged, after announcing the purchase of another £150billion of government bonds last month.
The Bank has created £895billion of emergency cash through so-called quantitative easing since the last financial crisis, including £450billion so far this year following the outbreak of Covid-19.
This involves the Bank ‘printing’ more digital money and using it to by buying assets such as government bonds from banks, which in turn are expected to pump those money into the economy by lending out to businesses and people.
‘The outlook for the economy remains unusually uncertain,’ the Bank said.
‘It depends on the evolution of the pandemic and measures taken to protect public health, as well as the nature of, and transition to, the new trading arrangements between the European Union and the United Kingdom.’
It also warned that the UK economy will take a bigger hit than previously expected in the last months of this year due to the rapid rise in coronavirus infections and related restrictions.
It said the latest round of Government curbs were stricter than it assumed in November, and would affect growth also in the first quarter of the new year.
In November, the Bank said it expected gross domestic product to contract by a ‘little over 1 per cent’ in the last quarter of 2020.
Today, it said: ‘UK-weighted global GDP growth in 2020 Q4 is likely to be a little weaker than expected at the time of the November Report.’
However, the latest latest vaccine developments were ‘likely to reduce the downside risks to the economic outlook’, the Bank said.
The update from the Bank comes as the UK is in last-ditch talks with the European Union over a trade deal and the Government imposes new restrictions ahead of Christmas to limit the spread of Covid.
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