LONDON (Reuters) - Bank of England policymaker Swati Dhingra, who has voted to keep borrowing costs unchanged at recent meetings of the Monetary Policy Committee, said interest rates were already high enough and further increases would threaten to hurt the economy.
"Policy is already sufficiently restrictive, and the lagged effects of further tightening pose serious risks of output volatility in order to make a small dent on inflation," Dhingra said in an annual report to parliament's Treasury Committee.
"While each additional increase in Bank Rate intensifies the effect on currently exposed subsets of the economy – for example those rolling off fixed-rate mortgages - it takes time for the breadth of the effects to increase."
The BoE has raised rates at each of its last 14 meetings and is expected to do so again later this month.