Britain should "expect significant slowdown" in the economy

After last week’s inflation report from the Bank of England, RaW News spoke to Dr Andrew Sentance, an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at the Bank of England. He told us that he expected inflation to return towards the 2% target in the medium run and whilst he said that we cannot rule out a recession, we should expect a “significant slowdown” in the growth of the economy. Asked whether the rising food prices would hit students would be disproportionately, he said that everybody would be affected. He also said that students should be the ones to decide what economic problem they should worry about, but wanted to emphasise the point that we all benefit from a low inflation economy.

As regards the future, he thought that if consumers become more cautious in the coming years, we may become more dependent on export led growth. This will also be helped by the depreciation of the pound.

The MPC is responsible for setting interest rates in the United Kingdom and it targets the Government’s target of 2% inflation (CPI).

We began by asking what his role is:

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To read the overview of May’s inflation report, click here.

Sam Shirley
Programme Controller

The interview was conducted on Tuesday 20th May.

: 22 May 2008 16:21 |  Tags: Andrew Audio Committee Economy Interview Monetary News Policy Sentance |  Comments (2) |  Report a problem