Minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee Meeting held on 4 and 5 May 2011

The MPC at its meeting voted to maintain Bank Rate at 0.5%. The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of purchased assets financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200 billion.

Published on 18 May 2011

The Governor invited the Committee to vote on the propositions that:

Bank Rate should be maintained at 0.5%;
The Bank of England should maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200 billion.

Regarding Bank Rate, six members of the Committee (the Governor, Charles Bean, Paul Tucker, Paul Fisher, David Miles and Adam Posen) voted in favour of the proposition. Three members of the Committee voted against the proposition. Andrew Sentance preferred to increase Bank Rate by 50 basis points. Spencer Dale and Martin Weale preferred to increase Bank Rate by 25 basis points.

Regarding the stock of asset purchases, eight members of the Committee (the Governor, Charles Bean, Paul Tucker, Spencer Dale, Paul Fisher, David Miles, Andrew Sentance and Martin Weale) voted in favour of the proposition. Adam Posen voted against the proposition, preferring to increase the size of the asset purchase programme by £50 billion to a total of £250 billion.

Minutes of the meeting