Bank of England hikes interest rates for ninth time in a row, to 3.5%

The BoE statement did not repeat unusual language from November when it said rates were unlikely to need to rise as far as markets expected. Market rate expectations have fallen since then.

One policymaker, Catherine Mann, wanted a bigger rate rise this month on the scale of November's 0.75 percentage point increase — the BoE's largest in more than 30 years — to tackle what she viewed as increased inflation risks since November.

However, two other policymakers, Silvana Tenreyro and Swati Dhingra, who had opposed the scale of November's increase, said it was now time to halt rate rises entirely, as what had been done so far was "more than sufficient" to get inflation back to target.

The BoE move follows the US Federal Reserve's decision on Wednesday to raise its main rate by half a point, as Western central banks grapple with post-COVID labour shortages and the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on energy prices.

The European Central Bank is set to raise interest rates for the fourth time in a row on Thursday, although by less than at its last two meetings.

BoE Governor Andrew Bailey, in a letter to finance minister Jeremy Hunt accompanying the decision, said the BoE forecasts suggested British inflation had reached its peak.

Official figures on Wednesday showed consumer price inflation fell to 10.7 percent in November from 11.1 percent in October. That 0.4 percentage point fall in the annual rate was the largest since July 2021.

Budget decisions in Hunt's November fiscal statement meant inflation in the second quarter of next year would be 0.75 percentage points lower than the BoE had forecast, but the longer-term impact would be minimal, the BoE said.

Unemployment is now creeping up, reaching 3.7 percent in the three months to October, but pay excluding bonuses still managed to rise at its fastest nominal rate since 2001, up 6.1 percent on a year earlier.

Last month the BoE said Britain was entering a long recession, and predicted the economy would shrink by 0.3 percent in the final quarter of this year.

Now it expects a fall of 0.1 percent, and for economic output in a year's time to be 0.4 percent higher than previously thought as a result of budget measures that offered short-term stimulus.

However, fiscal tightening further ahead would leave GDP levels in two year's time little changed from the BoE's November forecast, and 0.5 percent lower than in three years' time.