Will interest rates be cut in March?

On Thursday, the Bank of England voted to keep interest rates at 0.75% but the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) said it was poised to cut if necessary.

So will that happen at the next meeting in March?

Former MPC member Andrew Sentance tells the BBC’s Today programme, “If forecasts turn out the way the Bank is expecting, I do not think we need to see an interest rate cut.”

He points out that since interest rates had been “at a very low level” for a long time, “the benefit of a cut would be very modest.”

Sentance says keeping rates at such a low level “does not necessarily help the economy in the long term” and expressed disappointment about that aspect of Mark Carney’s time as Bank governor. “Monetary policy has been adrift,” he says.