The UK base rate will stay at 5.75 per cent for the next month following yesterday's meeting of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC).

If the committee had decided to impose another rate rise, it would have been the sixth in 12 months.

The decision was welcomed by Trevor Williams, chief economist at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets, saying it allowed time for other rate rises to take effect.

He explained that he was against a rate rise at present because "with around two million people likely to have to re-fix their mortgages at higher current rates, the economic impact could be quite large and negative".

And he added that he would like to see this "situation of wait and see persist for some months".

Inflation is still riding above two per cent in the UK, leading many analysts to believe that a further interest rate rise is inevitable before the end of the year.

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