The Bank of England could hike rates by as much as 0.5% at its next rates meeting, its boss will say if he promises to bring inflation under control.
However, Andrew Bailey will say in a speech to city leaders on Tuesday that such a move is “not committed”.
Data on Wednesday is expected to show that inflation rose in June from a 40-year high of 9.1% in May.
The bank should try to bring this number back down to 2%.
Mr Bailey, the bank’s governor, is expected to say in a speech at Mansion House that a 50 basis point hike – from 1.25% to 1.75% – will be one of the options for the monetary policy committee to when he next talks about interest on august 4th.
“At the last MPC meeting, we adopted language that made it clear that if we see signs of greater persistence of inflation, we must act vigorously, and price and wage fixing would be such signs,” he will say.
“Put simply, that means there will be a 50 basis point raise on the table at our next meeting.
“50 basis points, and whoever is forecasting that is doing so from their own perspective.”
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For at least the past seven years, the bank has cut and hiked interest rates in increments of 0.25 percentage points.
But June inflation figures, to be released by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday, are expected to have broadly rebounded from 9.1% in May, well above the bank’s 2% target.
The bank has predicted that the pace of price increases will exceed 11% in October.
“Let me be very clear, there are no ifs and buts in our commitment to the 2% inflation target. That’s our job, and that’s what we’re going to do,” the governor will say.
But it’s a daunting task at this time.
“From a monetary policy perspective, these are the most challenging times for the inflation targeting monetary policy regime that we have seen in the quarter century since the MPC was established in 1997,” Mr. Bailey will say.
Factors driving inflation include the reopening of the economy after recovering from the Covid pandemic, a shortage of British labor and Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“The big external shocks — from Russia and supply chains — are responsible for both much of the inflation overshoot and the pressure on real incomes,” he will say.
“My impression from the latest data is that the shock in the supply chain has started to wear off, but the Russian impact – particularly on natural gas prices in Europe – goes the other way as we look ahead to winter.
“The effect of those shocks was that the cost of the things we import went up relative to the things we produce domestically,” he will say.
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