The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has voted to maintain the official Bank Rate at 0.5%.

The MPC also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves – so-called quantitative easing (QE) – at £200 billion.

In the light of the MPC’s latest Inflation Report projections and in order to keep inflation on track to meet the 2% inflation target over the medium term, the Committee judged that it was appropriate to maintain Bank Rate at 0.5% and its stock of purchases of government and corporate debt financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200 billion.

The MPC noted that this stock of past purchases, together with the low level of Bank Rate, would continue to impart a substantial monetary stimulus to the economy for some time to come.

The MPC’s latest inflation and output projections will appear in the Inflation Report to be published next Wednesday, 10 February.

Ray Boulger of John Charcol said: “The only real interest this month was whether the QE programme would be extended and whether there would be any comment from the MPC giving an indication about what next week’s Quarterly Inflation Report will say. Despite the much bigger than expected increase in inflation in December the indications that it will fall back to the target 2%