{"id":500839,"date":"2026-06-19T12:32:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T12:32:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/500839\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T12:32:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T12:32:45","slug":"interest-rates-kept-on-hold-at-3-75","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/500839\/","title":{"rendered":"Interest rates kept on hold at 3.75%"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At the last meeting in April, the committee members voted 8-1 for a hold, with Huw Pill, the Bank&#8217;s chief economist, the only one to vote for a rate rise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This time, the vote was 7-2, with Megan Greene voting alongside Pill for an increase in the rate to 4%. She highlighted the uncertainty over the impact on households and businesses of higher energy prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The MPC met just before the US-Iran peace deal was signed and will meet again at the end of July, when its success and longevity should be clearer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking later, Bailey said he was &#8220;encouraged&#8221; by recent developments in the Middle East. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Energy prices have come down quite a lot, but they&#8217;re still above where they were before this conflict started. Inflation is higher than we expected it to be,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think holding is the right position to be in at the moment for that, so I think it&#8217;s a sensible decision in the light of the news.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The peace deal, which was signed on Wednesday, could lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Should oil start to flow freely again through the vital waterway &#8211; which normally carries a fifth of the world&#8217;s oil and gas supplies &#8211; then concerns over a pick-up in  inflation would be eased.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Price rises are still expected to accelerate in the UK, given the delayed impact of higher wholesale energy prices on domestic gas and electricity prices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Millions of UK households&#8217; energy bills are governed by regulator Ofgem&#8217;s price cap, which will increase by 13% in July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, the committee has lowered its overall inflation expectations since its last meeting in April, with an expectation that the rate will hit 3.25% in the final three months of the year. This is below even its most benign scenario outlined by the Bank earlier in the year, but still above the 2% target.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the last meeting in April, the committee members voted 8-1 for a hold, with Huw Pill, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-500839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}