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

The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of purchased assets financed by the issuance of central bank reserves (so-called ‘quantitative easing’) at £375 billion.

Neil Lovatt, director of financial products at Scottish Friendly, said: “Despite the Governor of the Bank of England saying in June that interest rates were likely to go up sooner rather than later, today’s announcement means they have now been pegged at this rate for five years.”

“It’s still expected, however, that rates will rise. We expect any rate rises will be small because we are likely to remain in a low interest rate environment – the landscape has changed from what it was before. Nowadays very small rises in interest rates will have a significant effect on what is still a fragile economy.

“Any savers thinking that the ‘good old days’ of high interest rates will return are going to be sorely disappointed and the sooner we adapt to this environment the better.”