HSBC’s chief UK economist Simon Wells told the Treasury Select Committee he thought the central bank was likely to make the first increase in the Bank rate in the fourth quarter of 2015.
When MPs pressed Wells on whether this could be due to political pressure, he avoided answering outright but said he stuck by his view that a rate rise was highly unlikely in April 2015.
He said: “There is a potential you could see employment go down and growth take off there might need to be a rate rise at that time.
“But when you put politics and economics together I think it would be at least the second half of 2015.”
The Bank of England had been dragged more into the political sphere in the past few years, he said, and monetary policy had “to some extent” been politicised.
Referring to the central bank’s new governor, Mark Carney, who was head-hunted for the job by George Osborne, he said: “If you go back to the start of the year, it was clear the government wanted more monetary activism. I think Carney in his interview was supportive of more monetary activism as well.”
Wells was giving evidence alongside Royal Bank of Canada capital markets chief European economist Jens Larsen and Berenberg Bank UK economist Rob Wood.
Wood suggested the Bank could raise its rate in the third quarter of 2015, while Larsen suggested it could happen in early 2016. Two out of the three economists expected the central bank to raise interest rates before taking steps to unwind quantitative easing.
Larson said the Bank had made it clear it had not defined a time for interest rates to remain low, and that consumers should not feel misled if the rate rose before 2016: “Hopefully people do not only make mortgage decisions based on what interest rates are going to do over the next two years.”
According to the Bank of England’s forward guidance, the Bank Rate will remain at its historic low of 0.5% until several conditions are met, including a fall in the unemployment rate falls to 7%.
The central bank was likely to issue more further guidance at a later date, Wood said: “There is a pretty good chance we get fresh guidance when we reach 7%.”
