LONDON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - All nine members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted in January to keep interest rates at record low of 0.5 percent and to maintain its 200 billion pound quantitative easing scheme, as expected.
Minutes to the Jan. 6-7 meeting, published on Wednesday, showed policymakers had not radically changed their medium term view that inflation would fall below its 2 percent target after a short term spike, which they admitted looked like being higher than previously thought.
The MPC said signals were mixed but the economy appeared to be growing again, albeit weakly. Policymakers said large policy stimuli and a weaker sterling exhange rate were still the main supports for growth but noted powerful headwinds remained.
Echoing Governor Mervyn King's remarks on Tuesday, the minutes were explicit in the need for a big fiscal tightening.
"It was clear that a significant fiscal consolidation was needed in the United Kingdom, the precise nature and pace of which remained unclear, and to which monetary policy would need to respond as new information became available," the minutes said.
The minutes suggested there were no major bones of contention among the nine-strong committee and will reinforce the view that February's meeting will be a crucial juncture for policy and markets.
"The projections and analysis prepared in advance of the February Inflation Report would enable a more comprehensive assessment of the latest information about the supply potential of the economy, as well as the impact of the various headwinds and tailwinds affecting activity and inflation," the minutes said.
Most analysts expect the BoE to halt its asset-buying programme once its 200 billion pound target has been met in the next few weeks but are split over when policy might be tightened.