The Bank of England's rate-setters have decided to pump another 50bn pounds of new money into the economy in their programme of quantitative easing. It will take their total spending to 175bn pounds, unexpectedly going over the 150bn pounds set aside by the chancellor. In a statement, they said that the UK recession "appears to have been deeper than previously thought". The rate-setters also decided to keep interest rates unchanged at their historic low of 0.5% for a fifth month.