Keeping British interest rates on hold this month was a straightforward decision, as it made sense to wait and see if first-quarter economic weakness was temporary, Bank of England Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent said on Friday. The central bank said on Thursday that it would look for signs over the coming months that the economy is picking up before raising rates again, which Governor Mark Carney said was likely to be before the end of the year if all went well. “It is entirely the sensible thing to do, to wait to see whether we are right that the economy will bounce back from here, and for me the decision was straightforward,” Broadbent said in a BBC radio interview. Two of the BoE’s nine-member Monetary Policy Committee voted to raise rates to 0.75 percent from 0.5 percent this month, arguing that delaying a rise in the face of weak growth that looked temporary risked necessitating more abrupt hikes later. Thursday’s decision to keep rates on hold contrasted sharply with market expectations of a few weeks ago for a May rate rise. Published in Daily Times, May 12th 2018.