Bank of England Announcement - Interest rates kept on hold

The Bank of England kept interest rates on hold for the twenty seventh consecutive month after the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC's) June meeting. In addition, the size of the asset purchase facility (known as quantitative easing) remained on hold at £200 billion, where it has been since November 2009.

The announcement comes as inflation soared to a thirty-two month high, with the annual increase on the consumer price index reaching 4.5% in April - up from 4.0% in March. Excluding indirect taxes (reflecting the level of inflation if we strip out the effects of the January VAT rise, and the alcohol and tobacco duty increases that came into effect at the end of March), prices rose by 3.0% year-on-year in April, an increase of 0.5 percentage points from March.