LONDON, Nov 18 (Reuters) - The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee was split three ways in November, with seven members backing the 25 billion pound expansion of quantitative easing, one wanting more and another calling for no increase at all.
Minutes of the Nov 4-5 meeting published on Wednesday also showed the MPC discussed the merits of cutting the remuneration rate the BoE pays on commercial bank reserves but agreed they did not want to use the option now but could in the future.
While the majority of the MPC wanted a 25 billion pound expansion to the QE programme -- as the asset purchase scheme to boost the economy is commonly called -- David Miles called for it to be increased by 40 billion pounds in "order to provide greater insurance to the downside risks to growth and inflation".
BoE chief economist Spencer Dale, however, favoured no increase at all, arguing that more money pumped into the economy might fuel "unwarranted increases in some asset prices that could prove costly to rectify".