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Dhingra urges Bank to hold steady on rates
by cityam
JACK BARNETT
THE BANK of England risks tipping the UK economy into recession and worsening the cost of living crisis if it raises interest rates too aggressively, a top official said yesterday.
Swati Dhingra, an external member of the Bank of England rate setting monetary policy committee (MPC), warned “overtightening poses a more material risk at this point” than elevated inflation embedding into the UK economy. Doing so “risks unnecessarily denting output at a time when the economy is weak and deepening the pain for households when budgets are already squeezed through energy and housing costs,” Dhingra added at an event hosted by the economic think tank the Resolution Foundation. Her remarks illustrate the split emerging on the MPC between officials who think rates need to keep rising to prevent high price rise increases becoming the norm and those who reckon the Bank has already done enough.
Dhingra voted in the 7-2 minority at the Bank’s meeting last month to keep rates unchanged at 3.5 per cent. The MPC’s next meeting is on 23 March.
Since December 2021, Bank governor Andrew Bailey and the rest of the MPC have bumped borrowing costs up 390 basis points to a 15-year high of four per cent.
That’s the fastest tightening cycle since the 1980s and was launched to try to tame inflation, which has raced to a 40-year high.
Prominent MPC hawk Catherine Mann, also an external member, railed against Dhingra’s view this week, saying more needs to be done on rates to stop firms and workers raising prices steeply and demanding high pay increases respectively.
The Restaurant Group said it would convert some loss-making sites to Wagamamas
Wagamama owner TRG to close 35 sites as the cost of living bites
LAURA MCGUIRE
THE RESTAURANT Group (TRG) yesterday said it will shrink its leisure portfolio by 30 per cent after the group posted an annual loss of £86.8m.
The Wagamama owner said it will shutter some 35 “loss-making” locations, taking its portfolio down to 75-85, due to a “tough macro-
