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

The base rate has been at this historic low since March of this year.

The MPC also voted to continue with its programme of asset purchases totalling £175 billion financed by the issuance of central bank reserves. It expects the announced programme to take another month to complete. The scale of the programme will also be kept under review.

Ray Boulger of mortgage broker John Charcol said: The minutes of last month’s MPC meeting suggested that inflation will be very volatile over the next few months. They also flagged up that as the expected autumn utility price falls hadn’t materialised the likelihood of CPI falling below 1% was reduced but that short tem volatility in CPI would have little implication for policy unless the medium term outlook changed. Next month’s Quarterly Inflation Report will provide a useful update on the Bank’s inflation expectations and give the MPC more confidence in deciding whether to extend the Quantitative Easing programme.”