Bank of England raises Bank Rate to 4% after 8–1 MPC vote

The decision

At its meeting ending on 4 November 2026, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted by a majority of 8–1 to increase Bank Rate by 0.25 percentage points, to 4%. One member voted to increase Bank Rate by 0.5 percentage points, to 4.25%.

The page lists Current Bank Rate 4% and Next due: 17 December 2026. The decision and minutes were published on 05 November 2026.

Why the MPC raised Bank Rate

The minutes say the conflict in the Middle East is now in its ninth month and global energy prices have continued to rise from an already elevated level. UK CPI inflation increased to 3.5% in September. The minutes say direct energy effects had contributed around 1 percentage point to that outturn, most of which was driven by fuels.

The minutes give energy-price details used by staff: over the 15 UK working days to 27 October the front-month Brent crude oil futures contract and the UK front-month natural gas futures contract averaged $108 per barrel and 216 pence per therm, respectively. These were 38% and 81% higher than at the time of the July Monetary Policy Report, and 5% and 27% above the respective 2026 Q4 futures-price assumptions in the July Report adverse scenario. The Committee judged the degree of inflationary pressure in the pipeline was sufficient to warrant an increase in Bank Rate. It also noted activity data in recent months had generally been stronger than expected, adding to the case for modestly tighter monetary policy.

What the MPC said about the path ahead

The Committee said monetary policy is not on a pre-set path and it will continue to assess the evidence at each meeting, in particular how likely high energy prices are to feed through to other prices and the economy more broadly, by monitoring the evolution of underlying pay, pricing behaviour, and slack. The Committee will adjust Bank Rate as necessary to ensure CPI inflation returns to the 2% target in the medium term.

Minutes note there was still limited evidence to date of second-round effects in wage and price-setting, but that the risk of material second-round effects had risen further since September and could remain a risk for some time. Bank staff's latest near-term projection, based on energy prices averaged over the 15 UK working days to 27 October, was for headline CPI inflation to reach around 4½% in 2027 Q1 and around 5% in 2027 Q2. The Committee also discussed the Budget and noted new policy measures were expected to have a downward impact of ¼ percentage points on CPI inflation by 2027 Q2.