LONDON (Reuters) -The Bank of England cut interest rates to 4% from 4.25% on Thursday but four of its nine policymakers - worried about high inflation - sought to keep borrowing costs on hold.
Here's what Bank of England officials said in a press conference following that decision:
ANDREW BAILEY, BANK OF ENGLAND GOVERNOR
"Domestic price and wage pressures have generally continued to abate in recent months, and that's allowed us to take another step today in reducing bank rates. But the picture is more
complex than that."
"Our job is to ensure that inflation falls back to the 2% target once these temporary factors pass, as we expect to see. So it remains important that we do not cut bank rate too quickly or by too much."
"There are good reasons to think that this rise in headline inflation will not persist."
"Food and energy prices are salient to consumers and often affect inflation expectations more than other prices, so we have to be very careful that this does not lead to any additional second round effects on wage and price setting in the economy."
Asked if rates were definitely still on a downward path: "Yes... I do think the path continues to be downward."
"There is, however, genuine uncertainty now about the course of that direction of rates. I'll be honest with you, the point I was making is that I think that the path has become more uncertain."
"My vote was not, I should say, motivated by my concerns about a risk of recession. The other thing I would say is that ... our actual view on the path of activity going forward has changed really very little since May."
"The steepening of curves that we've see ... across this year, is actually a phenomenon that we've seen across major government bond markets. So... I don't think there's a particularly UK story going on"
(Reporting by Alistair Smout and UK bureau, editing by Sarah Young)
