After the previous rate-setting meeting in July, the Council said it had wound up an easing cycle started almost two years earlier. The Council said the base rate had “reached a level which ensures the medium-term achievement of price stability and a corresponding degree of support for the economy”. According to the minutes of the meeting, the Council saw “persistently loose monetary conditions” in the macroeconomic outlook, although noting that a “cautious approach to policy” was warranted because of “uncertainty about future developments in the global financial environment”.