Andrew Bailey Says UK Economy Showing 'Signs Of An Upturn'

Transcript

00:00 Now, you're right that the economy appears to have had a period of recession in the last

00:07 two quarters of last year.

00:10 Monetary policy has been restrictive, Joan, we've said this a number of times.

00:14 I should say it's also against a backdrop of very weak growth on the supply side of

00:18 the economy, which we'll no doubt come back to.

00:22 But monetary policy has been intentionally restrictive, and that has been, and inflation

00:28 has come down very rapidly.

00:30 A lot of that is to do with the unwinding of the global inflation shocks, but monetary

00:34 policy has played its part, and we've always intended that to be so.

00:38 What I would say, and then I'll come on to the specific points you raised, but can I

00:42 just make one point, which I think is very important here, which hasn't got coverage.

00:47 All of this is happening in the context of the economy being at full employment.

00:53 So we've had this period of rapid disinflation, we've had, yes, restrictive monetary policy,

00:59 but on all the measures we use, the economy appears to be at full employment.

01:03 That is a very good story.

01:04 It's very good, and we don't want unemployment rising rapidly.

01:07 It has happened in the past when we've had to do these sorts of actions.

01:12 So I would just say against a lot of talk about what is, we think, going to be a very

01:15 small recession.

01:16 We think the economy is already actually showing distinct signs of an upturn, can come back

01:22 to that.

01:23 [BLANK_AUDIO]