The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has voted to keep the official Bank Rate at 0.5%. It is unchanged for the 19th consecutive month, with the last reduction of 0.5 percentage points to 0.5% taking place on 5 March 2009.

The MPC is also leaving its Quantitative Easing programme unchanged at £200 billion.

Ray Boulger of John Charcol said: “The authorities can draw on the lessons of the 1930s and have more tools at their disposal now and so there are reasonable grounds to expect the current period of austerity will be shorter. However