LONDON, Jan 29 - British house prices this month rose at their slowest rate since April last year, the Nationwide building society said on Thursday. The mortgage lender said prices rose 0.7 percent on the month and by 14.3 percent from a year earlier. Last month, the mortgage lender said house prices grew by a seasonally adjusted 1.5 percent in December and by 15.6 percent on the year. The average house price stood at 134,806 pounds in January. The data may provide some comfort to the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee which has long predicted that house price inflation would subside over the next two years. But the figures do little to dispel widespread expectations that the central bank will repeat its quarter-point November interest rate hike next week to check inflation as the economy gathers momentum.//