BoE says interest rates edging up

Bank of England policy maker Richard Lambert says the interest rate cycle is edging up but denies the Bank has abandoned its gradualist approach to raising rates, a newspaper said on Saturday.
"The interest rate cycle is edging up... I don't agree with those who say we have abandoned gradualism," Lambert, a member of the Bank's rate-setting monetary policy committee, told the Guardian newspaper in an interview on Saturday.
The Bank of England made its first back-to-back interest rate rise in more than four years earlier this month, pushing its key repo rate up to 4.5 percent, leading economists to say the bank had abandoned its gradualist approach to setting interest rates.
The previous three interest rate hikes since November had also been for a quarter point but had come at three monthly intervals.
Lambert reiterated the Bank's line that it does not target house prices, and said it did not want to use interest rates to shock people.
"I don't know what interest rate would be necessary to stop the house price juggernaut, but it would be one that would have damaging consequences for the British economy as a whole," he said.
Lenders' surveys have shown UK house price inflation running at around 20 percent.