The Bank of England (BoE) has kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 3.75 percent, Britain's central bank said in a statement on Thursday.
At its meeting ending on Wednesday, the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted by a majority of five to four to maintain the rate. Four members voted to reduce the rate by 0.25 percentage points.
In mid-December 2025, the bank announced a 25-basis-point cut to its benchmark interest rate, bringing it down to 3.75 percent, the lowest level since early 2023.
The move marked the sixth rate reduction since August 2024, when the bank began easing monetary policy from a 16-year-high rate of 5.25 percent.
The committee judged that the risk from greater inflation persistence had continued to become less pronounced, while some risks to inflation from weaker demand and a loosening labor market remained, the statement said.
Britain's consumer price index (CPI) rose by 3.4 percent year on year in December 2025, accelerating from 3.2 percent in November, earlier data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed.
The country's economy expanded marginally in late 2025 amid a subdued underlying momentum, with real gross domestic product (GDP) edging up 0.1 percent in the September-November period. At the same time, its unemployment rate for people aged 16 and over remained at a high level of 5.1 percent, according to the ONS.
Bank of England maintains interest rate at 3.75 pct
The expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between Russia and the United States has raised concerns among Russian experts, who warned that the absence of a successor pact could spark a new arms race.
The New START, signed by Russia and the United States in 2010, aims to limit the number of deployed nuclear warheads and their delivery systems. The treaty entered into force on Feb 5, 2011, with an initial validity period of 10 years and was later extended through Feb 4, 2026.
Experts in Moscow urged both sides to negotiate new arms control agreements and rules.
"The main risk is that the United States has opened the Pandora's box. A new arms race will begin, which will be difficult to control, because it lacks mutual oversight and transparency. The U.S. does not hide the fact that it wants to start a new arms race to defeat all geopolitical competitors," said Konstantin Blokhin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Russian experts also said that the United States had not always adhered to its commitments even while the treaty was in force.
"The original treaty included provisions for inspections of nuclear facilities in both countries. In practice, however, inspections were interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and since then, the United States has on more than one occasion evaded obligations on this issue stipulated in the treaty," said Konstantin Kamkin, a senior researcher at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
Absence of new arms reduction accord risks renewed arms race: Russia experts
