Savers disappointed at the Bank of England's decision today to freeze interest rates at 0.5% for the fifth consecutive month, have been warned that base rate could stay low for some time.

Ray Boulger, senior technical director at broker John Charcol, said that the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) 'probably spent more time discussing the Quantitative Easing (QE) programme than it did about changing base rate' and added that keeping rates at their current low of 0.5% was 'probably not a difficult decision'.

Brian Murphy, Head of Lending at Mortgage Advice Bureau, said: "The MPC's decision to maintain the base rate at 0.5% is unsurprising given the long-term nature of the fiscal stimuli applied over the past few months. For July at least, it will still be a question of adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach as the measures applied by the Bank of England continue to take their time to work through the system. Those who expected to see immediate effects from past measures will remain disappointed, as the time is not right for a rate change either way."

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