Bank of England leaves rates unchanged, ready to respond in either direction

The Bank of England’s  Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted unanimously to leave the Bank Rate unchanged at 0.25% at today’s meeting as expected. The Bank of England said however, they are ready to respond in either direction.

The Committee also voted unanimously to continue with the programme of £60 billion of UK government bond purchases to take the total stock of these purchases to £435 billion, financed by the issuance of central bank reserves.

The BoE's also released the Quarterly Inflation Report, which showed that the BoE revised its forecasts for 2016. BoE now expects GDP to reach  at 2.2%, up from 2.0% previously estimated and inflation at 1.3%, from 1.2%.

The BoE stressed that while it is prepared to look through an inflation rate that is forecast to peak at 2.7% in 2017 and 2018, "there are limits to the extent to which above-target inflation can be tolerated."

BoE presser begins at 12:30 GMT.