MPC voted 7 to 1 to hold base rate at 4.5%

At the meeting held at the beginning of this month, Stephen Nickell was once again the only person to vote for a 25 basis point reduction, claiming consumption growth was unlikely to pick up as permanent income would be damaged by higher energy prices and the rising effective tax rate. He also suggested there was no evidence of any second round price impact from higher energy prices, meaning inflation was likely to fall modestly below the target as the first round effects began to drop out of the annual rate of change. However, Nickell, who finishes his six year stint at the MPC at th...