The Committee comprises nine members, including the Governor of the Bank of England, and is responsible primarily for keeping the Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure of inflation close to a target set by the government, currently 2% per year (as of 2019).

[2] That secondary aim was reinforced by then Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in his March 2013 budget, with the MPC given more discretion to more openly "trade off" above-rate inflation in the medium run to boost other economic indicators.

[2] In January 2009 the Chancellor announced an Asset Purchase Facility (APF), to be administered by the MPC, aimed at ensuring greater liquidity in financial markets.

By March 2009, faced with very low levels on inflation and interest rates already at 0.5%, the MPC voted to start the process of quantitative easing (QE) – the injection of money directly into the economy – via the APF.

There have also been complaints about the reluctance of lenders to pass on rate changes,[10] and about the extent to which the introduction and management of QE have risked politicising the committee.

On 6 May 1997, operational responsibility to set interest rates was granted to the independent Bank of England by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.

[14] The years 1998 to 2006 witnessed an unprecedented period of price stability – during which inflation stayed within a percentage point of the target – despite earlier predictions that it could sit outside the range forty or more per cent of the time.

A 2007 report produced for the Treasury Committee noted that the MPC's independence of government "has reduced the scope for short-term political considerations to enter into the determination of interest rates".

[15] However, the financial crisis of 2007–08 ended this period of stability, and, on 16 April 2007, the governor (at that time Mervyn King), was obliged to write the first MPC open letter to the chancellor (Gordon Brown), explaining why the inflation had deviated from the target of 2% per year by more than one percentage point (3.1%).

[22] In March 2013, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, called on the MPC to follow its American counterpart (the Federal Reserve Board) in committing itself to keeping interest rates low for a prolonged period of time via appropriate forward guidance,[5] which it did on 7 August.

Having taken over in August 2013, Governor Mark Carney wrote his first open letter in February 2015 to explain why inflation had fallen below 1% for the first time in the MPC's history.

[25] Following the UK's vote to leave the European Union in June 2016, the MPC cut the base rate from 0.5% to 0.25%, the first change since March 2009.

[26] In December 2014, the Bank adopted the recommendations of a report prepared by Kevin Warsh aimed at improving the transparency of the committee's decision making processes.

[27] Following a reshuffle in April 2014, the committee currently comprises:[3] Each member has one vote of equal weight,[3] for which they can be held publicly accountable.

[28] Following a procedural change in 2015, minutes of each meeting (including the policy preference of each member) are published on the Bank's website at the same time as any decision is announced, resulting in a "Super Thursday" effect.