Britain heading for year-long recession, Bank of England predicts

Bank announced a further hefty hike in official interest rates of a half a percentage point, as it fights an epic battle to get British inflation under control

Bank of England predicted inflation would stay elevated and the economic downturn would extend through next year and 2024.

Britain is hurtling towards a recession that will last for more than a year, as inflation spikes to 13% and hard-hit households face the sharpest fall in their spending power in about 60 years, the Bank of England has forecast in its bleakest prediction for the UK economy in over a decade.

Fears the British economy was heading into some sort of major contraction due to its severe cost-of-living crisis had been widely flagged. But the latest assessment by the Bank of England on Thursday was if anything much bleaker than anticipated, economists said.