One of the Bank of England’s MPC (Monetary Policy Committee) executives has said that it should increase interest rates now in order to keep inflation “gradual and limited”.

Ian McCafferty has been pushing for a rise since August, despite current data showing a softening of growth in the UK economy.

However, Mr McCafferty said that the MPC needed to “look forward”. Writing in the Sunday Times, he said: “Ensuring that we act in good time and move rates slowly, to allow consumers and businesses to adapt with minimum disruption, is, I believe, the best way of supporting and sustaining the economic expansion now under way.”