The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously in favour of maintaining the bank rate at 0.5% and keeping so-called quantitative easing at £200 billion.

In minutes published today, although the MPC judged that the risks to activity and inflation in the near term had increased, it was too early to assess with confidence the overall impact of recent developments on the medium-term outlook. It thought that some of the present uncertainties should be reduced by the time of future meetings.

All Committee members agreed that the overall outlook for inflation implied by the Inflation Report projections warranted leaving policy unchanged.