Clive Owen LLP

The Yorkshire Shadow MPC struggled with its decision this month, but caution won the day with a majority voting to hold interest rates as they are.

The MPC is a partnership between Clive Owen LLP and the York Press, which considers the state of the region’s economy and gives experts from a variety of sectors the opportunity to argue their case for a shift, or hold, in the rate.

Phillipa Symington, partner at Clive Owen LLP in York, said: “We’ve got an economy where we’ve had inflation for nearly two years, we’ve got businesses that are starting to feel the pressure of increasing costs, we’ve got inflation that continues to rise and as much as I’d personally not like to see interest rates go up I don’t think there’s much of a choice and we’re going to have to see another interest rate hike.”

Matthew Burgess chartered wealth manager, at Evelyn Partners said: “In order to hopefully pause wage growth I believe that we should continue to increase interest rates, which will cause a further burden on the economy but is really a balancing act between getting the labour market under control and supporting economic growth.”

Kerry Hope of Castle Recruitment said: “I am more cautious and would pause and evaluate.”

Steve Lowe, of Newsquest, said: “I would like to stay as we are and pause it. I think we need to encourage people and not frighten them. People are not spending because they’re fearful of costs continuing to rise.”

Dave Broadbent, partner at Begbies Traynor said: “I think we’ve got to pause, we’ve had a gradual increase for a number of months now and I think it would be worthwhile just pausing to see how the economy reacts for the next two or three months and take a view at that point.”

Beckie Hart, Regional Director Yorkshire & the Humber at CBI, said: “We published our economic forecast last Monday saying we no longer expect the economy to fall into a mild recession and we predicted a 0.4% growth over the course of 2023 but we do think that growth is going to be different across different sectors.

Because inflation has become much more sticky then we do think there will be another rate rise on Thursday but we hope it’s not more than a ¼ of a percentage point.”

Graham Robb, senior partner at Recognition PR said: “I find myself going for a pause and evaluate. The thing that would stop me pausing is worrying that if we paused our pound would fall and that would import more inflation. But on balance I just lean towards a pause because there is a lot of pent up pain that hasn’t filtered through the system and might do the job of tempering inflation as it filters through.”

Gill Gitsham, of manufacturer GSM said: “I would pause. I think a lot of the work they’ve done previously in increasing the interest rates hasn’t shown yet. I think towards the end of the year with energy prices coming down in homes then we’ll notice the difference there.” 

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