Interest rate cut for only second time in more than four years

The Bank of England has forecast Rachel Reeves’ first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

“Since the MPC’s previous meeting, the market-implied path for the Bank rate in the United Kingdom has shifted up materially,” the MPC said in its minutes.

Interest rate falls – latest updates

The Bank’s quarterly Monetary Policy Report found Reeves’ £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.

Governor Andrew Baily stressed however that the underlying trend was “continued progress in disinflation”.

The MPC, whose members voted 8-1 in favour of the cut, with the single opponent favouring a hold at 5%, maintained its view that rates will need to fall “gradually” as it monitors the economic response to falling inflation.

“Inflation is just below our 2% target and we have been able to cut interest rates again today,” said Mr Bailey.

“We need to make sure inflation stays close to target, so we can’t cut interest rates too quickly or by too much. But if the economy evolves as we expect it’s likely that interest rates will continue to fall gradually from here.”

The Bank forecasts that the increase in employer upward pressure on prices will begin in the first half of next year, with the addition of VAT to private school fees and the £1 increase in the bus fare cap to £3.

The increase in employer National Insurance to 15%, the largest single measure in the budget, is “assumed to have a small upward impact on inflation,” offset by the freeze in fuel duty rates.

Together these push inflation up by 0.3 percentage points next year, with the near-half point peak coming in 2026 only after the removal of the fuel duty-freeze, a measure the Bank is compelled to assume will happen, despite successive chancellor’s, including Reeves, maintaining it for 11 years.

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The Bank found that the National Insurance increase and the uprating in the National Living Wage “is likely to increase the overall costs of employment”, and will be passed on by employers through a mix of higher prices, marginal costs and wages, but the balance between those is not yet clear.

“The combined effects of the measures announced in the Autumn Budget 2024 are provisionally expected to boost the level of GDP by around three-quarter percent at their peak in a year’s time, relative to the August projections,” the minutes read.

“The budget is provisionally expected to boost CPI inflation by just under half of a percentage point at the peak, reflecting both the indirect effects of the smaller margin of excess supply and direct impacts from the budget measures.”

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