Bank of England set to hold rates steady at 0.5%

RATE-setters will mark a year of rock-bottom interest rates and efforts to boost the money supply today by maintaining their support for a fragile UK recovery.

The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee was set to keep its quantitative easing programme unchanged at 200 billion at its latest policy meeting and hold interest rates at their 0.5 per cent all-time low.

The "wait and see" stance comes after a month of mixed signals for the MPC as the UK crawls out of recession.