Bank of England policymakers voted 7-2 earlier this month to inject Britain's faltering economy with an extra £50 billion (60 billion euros, $79 billion), minutes of their meeting showed on Wednesday. The two who voted against had wanted extra stimulus totalling £75 billion, the minutes added. All nine policymakers voted to keep the BoE's key lending rate at a record low 0.50 percent, where it has stood for almost three years.
The BoE rate has stood at 0.50 percent since March 2009 when the central bank began injecting £200 billion into the economy under a radical policy known as Quantitative Easing. The central bank opted last October to increase the QE amount to £275 billion, before announcing on February 9 its intention to pump out an extra £50 billion - bringing the total to £325 billion.
Under QE, the central bank creates new cash that is used to purchase assets such as government and corporate bonds in the hope of giving a boost to lending and economic activity. Two members of the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee, David Miles and Adam Posen, voted at the last meeting to hike QE to £350 billion. For these two, "there was a risk of a prolonged period of depressed demand causing (British) inflation to fall materially below the (2.0-percent) target in the medium term", the minutes said. The Bank of England expects annual CPI inflation to hit its 2.0 percent target in the final quarter of 2012 and to fall as low as 1.5 percent in the following year.
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