BOE: Pill: MPC view pace is downwards but little less clear than over last year

Pill asked what was the end point of the cutting cycle.

• A: The Governor didn't give a precise answer and "wouldn't want to distinguish myself from the what the governor said, both because that would of itself great confusion."
• "The short and simple answer is to go back to what our mandate And our objective is, so we will get inflation to 2% which is our target consumer price inflation here in the UK, to 2% on a sustainable basis. And we will do with bank rate whatever we have to do".
• "We will, I think, continue to cut bank rate until we expect that it's achieved a degree of restriction, or degree of accommodation, a balanced degree that allows inflation to stay at that 2% target until something else comes along and knocks it off, on which we have to respond to in the normal course of our policy discussions, where precisely that rate is, I think, is a difficult challenge."
• "The MPC has made various statements in the past, its most recent statement, set of statements of being, well, that rate probably lies somewhere in the range of 2 to 4% in nominal terms, so we are now beginning to approach that range."
• "But whether that means that we can offer a more precise number in that relatively broad range, I mean, I would certainly be quite cautious to do so, because what the precise number will be will depend on circumstances across all the dimensions of the things that we've been discussing. If food prices go higher, if energy prices go higher or lower, if productivity developments change, if we see more migration, if we see less migration, these are all the types of drivers of resource pressures, drivers, ultimately, of inflationary pressures, to which the MPC will need to respond that we will need to keep a close eye on all of those things and move rates, appropriately to try and offset their effects once we get those back to that 2% target."
• "The message from the MPC yesterday was a message consistent with the view, yes, there's still a little bit further downward to go with bank rate. I think the pace at which those downward moves, perhaps going forward, is a little bit less clear than the pace that we've seen over the last year. But of course, we will can't make any pre commitment. Policy, as the governor also said yesterday, is not on a pre set path"