Transcript of the Governor's pooled broadcast interview given on 17 September 2026

ITV News - So obviously rates have been held today. And the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have raised rates in the last week. Is the Bank of England in danger of missing the boat again leaving households exposed to higher inflation than they need to see? Governor Andrew Bailey - Well we obviously spend a lot of time thinking through this very carefully. And we think there are two things that we focus on. One is the direct impact of energy prices and obviously the impact of what we're seeing in the Gulf. And that has obviously had a serious effect, and it continues to do so. And then we have to look at how that is feeding through into general inflation and the economy. It's still early days. So I'm not going to give you any firm judgment of what's going to happen. So far that feed through has been quite subdued. But it is early days. Now, unfortunately, the longer these high energy prices go on, the more difficult this becomes. And we've flagged this very clearly today. The final thing I'd say is that monetary conditions in this country have tightened quite a bit this year because we were expected to cut rates and we haven't. And that's, I think, obviously necessary. And I'll give you the best example of this, which I think many, many viewers will probably associate with. Mortgage rates in this country since the end of February when this conflict began have gone up by nearly 1%. So that's a substantial tightening of monetary conditions. And we take that into account. But it's going to get more difficult with these decisions the longer this problem of this conflict goes on. ITV News – Are you putting yourself in the position where you're being accused of being too slow to act? Given what's happening, as you say, with energy prices and now inflation is likely to continue rising over the coming months? Governor – The important thing is that we stay very focused on the impact of energy prices on inflation across the economy, and that's what we will do.