Near-term inflation pressures and uncertainty over wage growth in Britain rule out a cut just yet in interest rates, Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee member Kate Barker said on Tuesday. "In the short term, we have a lot of inflation pressure in the economy and we don't know how wage growth will pan out -- some say the next round could be difficult," Barker said after a speech to business leaders. She characterized the current level of rates as neutral to slightly stimulatory and said reducing them any further could spark wage inflation "The great nightmare we have on the committee is that low inflation expectations built up over the last 15 years will be lost. This suggests now is not quite the moment for cutting rates," Barker said, answering a question from the audience. But in prepared text of the speech, Barker said economic growth would probably be weaker than the BoE had predicted in its February Inflation Report, partly because consumer data had been weak since the start of the year. That increased the likelihood that inflation would fall below its 2.0 percent target in two years even though higher energy prices could raise price pressures in the short term. "The short-run upward price pressures create an upside risk. I would consider that the base rate is probably around a neutral level or slightly accommodative," she said in the speech. "Reducing the rate to a more stimulative level may risk sparking some second-round effect on wages... It is too early to conclude that this lack of pay pressure will endure."