The Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously to hold the Bank Rate at 0.5% a fortnight ago.

However, when voting on whether to keep the level of quantitative easing at £200 billion, eight members of the Committee (the Governor, Charles Bean, Paul Tucker, Ben Broadbent, Spencer Dale, Paul Fisher, David Miles and Martin Weale) voted in favour of the proposition. Adam Posen voted against the proposition, preferring to increase the size of the asset purchase programme by £50 billion to a total of £250 billion.

Posen argued that the balance of risks to inflation continued to warrant an immediate expansion of the Committee’s programme of asset purchases, financed by the issuance of central bank reserves. For him, the weak pattern of demand domestically and overseas had evolved broadly as expected, although the events of the past month suggested that the downside risks from the euro area had increased.