The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee voted at its July meeting to not expand its £125bn programme of quantitative easing, but will review its decision in August after it receives its latest UK inflation report. And it will also want to see signs that the real economy may now be entering recovery mode.

Minutes from the June meeting of the MPC showed that while members of the committee recognised the range of signs that the financial crisis and recession appeared to be abating for now, longer term threats had receded little.