BoE Chief Economist Huw Pill told BloombergTV that in yesterday policy decision statement, ” the word ‘forcefully’ – which clearly is the word the market is focused on, you focused on, and has a meaning – it’s also important to see that that was put in the context of ‘if necessary we will act forcefully’, and so there’s a conditionality there.”
“If we do see greater evidence that the current high level of inflation is becoming embedded in pricing behavior by firms, in wage setting behavior by firms and workers, then that will be the trigger for this more aggressive action,” he added.
But he also indicated that the statement had “a certain level of flexibility because it had to encompass those different views… we were trying to emphasise is that that flexibility also applies to what the decisions are. I don’t think it’s all about August. We talked about the pace, timing and scale of future decisions.”