The Bank of England maintains Bank Rate at 3.75% as of July 2026 and does not target a specific exchange rate for the pound, which floats freely. Sterling trades near six-month highs around $1.36, supported by rate hike expectations amid volatile energy prices and government debt concerns. The last FX intervention to influence sterling was in 1992, with reserves held on a precautionary basis.
The pound’s depreciation found no advocate in the room. No won by more than two votes to one, but the sharper finding is that this was less a vote for sterling’s strength than against making weakness a policy instrument.
The floor’s most-respected No case rested on institutional restraint: “The Bank of England is meant to be independent and does not target the pound.” Its warning was practical too — depreciation “hits import prices and pay” — while another voter reduced the principle to “Markets should set it.”
There was no Yes argument to answer, only No voters arguing among themselves about how firmly to reject the premise. Some doubted the Bank could deliver the outcome at all — “they haven’t the power to influence the price of sterling” — while others feared that allowing it would simply erode purchasing power through inflation.
The wider argument was therefore about economic management, not just the exchange rate. Voters attacked quantitative easing, urged tax and state reform, and one expansive intervention promised that “the economy will explode with growth”; another looked back to 1967, warning that “Recovery was not quick, inflation did go up.”
The chamber’s verdict was not an endorsement of intervention in the opposite direction. It was a refusal to treat a cheaper pound as an easy route to growth.
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Every vote you cast builds your political profile — where you lean, worked out from real questions rather than fixed statements.
11 Opinions
I don't forsee how quantitative easing is going to make life easier... It will just add another poison arrow into an already teetering economy. Encourage investment and growth elsewhere. Let's not reduce purchasing power more than it already is.
Devaluing the pound, was done in 1967 by Harold Wilson, partly because of inherited trade deficits, from the previous conservative government. Recovery was not quick, inflation did go up.
B of E should do what is best for UK finances. Keep inflation down and never again do quantative easing !!!
Even if the BoE wanted to, they haven't the power to influence the price of sterling. The market these days is just trillions of bets only slightly related to actual goods and economies.
The issue here is not the pound its government policy bring corporation tax down to encourage these companies to develop in the UK
We should stop quantitive easing cut taxes significantly cut the Civil Service by at least 50%. Repeal most of Blair’s laws repudiate all recent EU agreements & start drilling in the N Sea. Stop Net Zero & funding of all NGOs & all foreign aid & start deporting the illegal migrants and those legal migrants receiving benefits. The economy will explode with growth. Might involve jailing some politicians & civil servants.
No. The Bank of England is meant to be independent and does not target the pound. Asking it to “allow” depreciation is asking it to cheapen the currency for a growth headline. That hits import prices and pay. Let them do their job. A floating pound is not a lever for slogans.
When you have to artificially manipulate a currency you're a banana republic.
The strength of Sterling is a relative judgement Vs the dollar - and currently it's Trump's dollar. Leave it alone to find its value
Allowing depreciation enablefs inflation, which harms everyone. And that's assuming they would be good or effective at managing that depreciation!