Bank of England votes to hold at 4.75 per cent
The decision this morning by the Bank of England to hold interest rates at 4.75 per cent has been welcomed by the British Retail Consortium.

The announcement by the Monetary Policy Committee marks the second consecutive month in which rates have remained unchanged, despite a rise in headline inflation from 2.4 per cent to 2.5 per cent.

These latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that inflation continued to exceed the bank's 2 per cent target and stoked fears that a rate rise to curb spending and bring inflation back down will have to come sooner rather than later.

A BRC spokesman said that the organisation's own survey of shop prices, published on Wednesday, showed that retail price growth in August remained well below the present rate of inflation at 1.11 per cent, compared with the same month last year.

He said: 'There has to be a rate freeze as far as we are concerned - Consumer confidence appears to be being compressed so any upward movement [in interest rates] would have an extremely negative impact on the high street and is something we hope the bank would avoid at all costs.'

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