Bank of England says companies freezing hiring plans as it keeps interest rates on hold

Inflation remains above the Bank of England’s 2% target. Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/Zuma/Rex

The Bank of England has said UK businesses are freezing their hiring plans in response to Rachel Reeves’s tax increases and to mounting global uncertainty as it kept interest rates on hold at 4.5%.

Before the chancellor’s spring statement on Wednesday, the bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) voted eight to one to pause its cycle of rate cuts after three reductions in the past year.