With the Bank due to announce the outcome of February’s monetary policy meeting later today, Osborne has raised the stakes by calling for a commitment to further action.
The Chancellor said the government’s attempts to bring down the fiscal deficit means that “monetary policy action by the Bank of England can and should continue to support the economy”, the Financial Times has reported.
The paper said Osborne had “let slip his frustration” with the BoE, whose quantitative easing programme has already seen it make £375m worth of asset purchases.
Those comments came at an Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development event marking the publication of a report in which the OECD called for further UK monetary easing.
The Bank, given independence from political control in 1997, will see governor Mervyn King step down later this year, replaced by Canadian central banker Mark Carney.
Carney will face the Treasury Select Committee this morning in a three-hour grilling over his plans for UK monetary policy.
