At the first rate-setting meeting of Mark Carney as Governor, Bank of England policymakers united on both quantitative easing and interest rate, the minutes showed Wednesday.
Carney got the support of members on issuing forward guidance as well as consensus on stimulus after Paul Fisher and David Miles dropped their call for more stimulus.
The Monetary Policy Committee voted 9-0 to maintain the asset purchase programme at GBP 375 billion. Also, the MPC unanimously decided to retain the bank rate at 0.50 percent.
"For most members, the current policy setting was appropriate and the onus on policy at this juncture was to reinforce the recovery by ensuring that stimulus was not withdrawn prematurely, subject to keeping inflation on track to hit the 2 percent," the minutes said.
They made it clear that any tightening of monetary policy is long way off. A minority assessed the merit in pursuing a "mixed strategy" with regards to the different policy instruments at the MPC's disposal.
The committee's August response to the requirement in its remit to assess the merits of forward guidance and intermediate thresholds would shed light on both the quantum of additional stimulus required and the form it should take, the minutes said.
Although asset purchases remained an effective tool with which to inject more stimulus, some members said an expansion in the purchase programme was not warranted at this meeting. They pointed out that benefits of further asset purchases were likely to be small relative to their potential costs.
"Further purchases could complicate the transition to a more normal monetary policy stance at some point in the future," the minutes said.
More QE will occur should the economy suffer a marked relapse over the coming months, IHS Global Insight's Chief U.K. Economist Howard Archer said. More stimulus could also occur if gilt yields rise further, he added.
The bank said any announcement regarding the implementation of thresholds and forward guidance will be made on August 7 alongside the release of the Inflation Report, rather than immediately after the next policy meeting on August 1.
So it looks as though next month's MPC meeting will be another non-event, with any excitement coming the week after, said Vicky Redwood, an economist at Capital Economics. She expects the MPC to commit to keep interest rates low until some sort of unemployment threshold is reached.
Data released by the Office for National Statistics today showed that the number of Britons claiming the job seekers' allowance recorded the steepest decline in three years in June, in a sign that the economic recovery is gaining strength.
The claimant count fell 21,200 from May to 1.48 million in June. The International Labor Organization's measure of unemployment was 7.8 percent in the March to May period.
According to the Agents' summary of business conditions, employment intentions had edged higher in recent months, but were flat for consumer services. Further, investment intentions continued to be largely aimed at raising efficiency, it showed.
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June 19, 2026 16:46 ET Major central banks continued to dominate the economic news flow this week too, led by the Federal Reserve, as they announced their latest policy decisions. The Federal Reserve policy session was in focus as it was the first to be led by the new chief Kevin Warsh. In Europe, central banks of the U.K. and Switzerland announced their rate decisions. In Asia, the Bank of Japan drew attention for its policy moves, while data out of China threw some light on the state of the economy.