Bank policymaker says rates can start to rise without problems
THE Bank of England (BoE) has some leeway to raise record low interest rates without causing pain to borrowers who have entered the housing market with the help of government lending schemes, BoE policymaker Ben Broadbent said in an interview yesterday.
“The Bank of England has been around for over 300 years and we’ve never been near zero interest rates until they were cut to this level four years ago so I think there is a fair amount they could go up before borrowers got into great difficulty, I must say,” he told Sky News.
Rates would only rise once the economy is on a secure footing and the central bank is happy that such a move would not choke off the recovery, he said.
“Our primary objective is still inflation but we want to ensure that this recovery … continues and is not choked off by a premature rise in interest rates,” he said.