MNI BRIEF: BOE Policy 'Restrictive' Until Mid-2024 - Pill

The Bank of England policy rate is restrictive at its current 5.25% and that policy would probably stay restrictive "intothemiddleofnextyear," Chief Economist Huw Pill said Monday.

Restrictive policy comes with costs, as it pushes down on demand, and he talked about looking again in mid-2024 at whether to keep policy so restrictive, leaving the door open to Bank Rate cuts coming then, Pill said at a press briefing. "That'swhatfinancialmarketscurrentlyanticipate ...itdoesn'tseemtotallyunreasonable ...atthatpoint,youmightconsiderorreassess,ifnothingnewhashappened,wherewearegoingtohavetobe," he said.

In other remarks Pill said that he was confident -- mainly utility bills are going to fall markedly in October, due to the price cap system -- inflation would soon be back down towards the lower levels seen elsewhere in the world and stressed it was essential to keep the 2% inflation target not moving it up. In October , there will be "quite a sharp further fall in the headline measure of UK inflation ... we're hoping down to levels around or slightly below 5%," he said.