Bailey rejects criticism of BoE’s handling of inflation Andrew Bailey defended the Bank of England’s handling of inflation at a conference in Vienna, rejecting claims the Bank's decision to print billions of pounds during the pandemic and slash interest rates to record lows had served to fuel the rapid rise in inflation. Bailey denied the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee let demand get out of hand, stoking inflation. “The facts simply do not support this,” he said. The fault lay with an unprecedented succession of global shocks and the “very tight” labour market, Bailey contended. Looking forward, Bailey said the BoE was still trying to judge how far inflation would fall on its own, with price rises eating in to household income, forcing consumers to rein in spending. “We have to be careful, and we have to take these decisions meeting by meeting, which is why I don’t want to overuse forward guidance,” he said, noting that the BoE faced the twin risks of “high inflation on one side and the risk of a recession on the other”.