The Bank of England?s monetary policy committee has a mandate to ensure price stability and to keep inflation around the region of 2.5%. Recently inflation has spiralled to over 5% whilst rates have remained at historically low levels. Usually when inflation goes above the target the central bank intervenes and increases rates to slow demand and bring inflation under control. But they have not done this and have allowed the economy to grow at the expense of higher inflation. Hence, some analysts think that the monetary policy committee is focused on growth rather than inflation. This is obviously due to the rather sluggish recovery that the UK has experienced. If rates were increased at this time, this would harm if not kill the recovery. Higher rates would almost certainly