Monetary policy since August 2024 can be characterised by the gradual and careful removal of policy restrictiveness. Since the August 2024 MPC meeting, the Committee has been engaged in a cycle of cuts to Bank Rate from its post-pandemic peak and has continued to lower the stock of gilts held in the APF. 2. The reduction in policy restrictiveness was allowed by a rapid fall in headline CPI inflation from its 11% peak in October-2022, to close to 2% target levels by the autumn of 2024. While much of that decline in inflation reflected the unwinding of the external shocks to energy, food and tradable goods prices that ... (full story)