LONDON, Dec 17 - Bank of England Deputy Governor Andrew Large wanted to raise interest rates for the second month in a row in December, but was voted down by the other eight members of the Monetary Policy Committee. Minutes of the MPC's December 3 and 4 meeting published on Wednesday show that Large was particularly concerned by the rise in consumer debt levels and voted for another quarter-point rise to 4.0 percent to dampen that and spending. But the rest of the committee, including Governor Mervyn King and the other deputy, Rachel Lomax, thought it was better to wait and see what the effects of November's quarter-point rise -- the first in nearly four years -- would be before acting again. Still, the minutes suggested that the MPC would be raising rates before too long. "If the economy continued to evolve in line with the committee's central projections, a further increase in the repo rate would be warranted at some point," the minutes said.
The MPC judged that the global economy had matched or exceeded expectations since the November Inflation Report and most of the news in Britain had also been positive.//