Bank of England rebel Martin Weale concerned by high inflation
The rebel on the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) – hawk Martin Weale – has managed to sound both hawkish and dovish in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
At the last MPC meeting Weale voted against the introduction of forward guidance. Here's what the analysts had to say then.
Rob Wood, chief UK economist, Berenberg:
The bottom line is that he seems to be more concerned about above target inflation than the other Committee members and did not appear to be overly concerned by the rise in market interest rates since the BoE’s forward guidance was introduced. He said an important aspect of guidance is how it feeds through to the public and businesses, and the latter “have started to think they could feel more positive about investing” as a result of the policy.
The headline from his interview is that “more QE could be needed”. He said “asset purchases remain a tool available to the Committee if the economy needs further support.” Of course, that does not mean he would vote for more asset purchases anytime soon, or that he is much more dovish than his vote against guidance would suggest. The QE argument probably does not amount to much. Rather its probably just making the point that he would be ill-advised to categorically rule out any measure for stimulating the economy, given that, as he also says in the interview, no-one can know precisely what the future holds.