Lord Willie Haughey has expressed his surprise the Bank of England opted to leave its interest rate unchanged at 5.25%. The Bank’s monetary policy committee voted 5-4, the narrowest possible margin, to leave the UK’s cost of borrowing unchanged.
His Business Show co-host Sir Tom Hunter was similarly delighted, saying: “We were asking for this because a rate rise is a very blunt instrument and it does take time to filter through to the real economy. I think it would have done more damage to put the rate up.
“I’m really pleased it stayed. I believe it’s time to pause, to see what’s actually happening.
“There was also some good news recently on inflation: it’s only a 0.1% drop, which we were not expecting, but I will take anything for good news. So I think it’s the right decision on interest rates and good on them for doing that.”
With the Bank of England vote meaning there is now a greater chance mortgage rates have finally peaked – even though the Bank says it may act further if inflationary pressures intensify – Lord Haughey said it was of note that Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, had chosen the timing of the announcement to be particularly vocal about the UK economy.
“He had a right go at former PM Liz Truss,” he said, “and, quite rightly so, and the ‘Trussonomics’ for the short period we had her there. Obviously, it put the country way back.
“However, what I thought was interesting was he didn’t mention his successor Andrew Bailey – I don’t think all the blame sits with Liz Trust or the Tory government.
“In fact, we have said it for months and months that the Bank of England were asleep at the wheel and not moving fast enough to move interest rates up.”
Sir Tom confessed it was often an “easy and open goal” to criticise politicians but much more difficult to criticise the person who’s taken over from you.
“I always thought Mark Kearney was a good governor. But, yes, by all means kick the politicians . . . just like we do!”
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