The Bank of England announced the thirteenth consecutive interest rate rise today in a bid to curb inflation - but is there anything else that they could do to help instead?
Official data on Wednesday showed that inflation, the annual rate at which prices go up, was stuck at 8.7% in May.
This means the Bank of England will most likely increase its base interest rate from 4.5% today.
Some experts believe it will be upped by 0.25 percentage points to 4.75% while others say it could even rise to 5%.
The base rate is important because it influences what banks and lenders charge people to borrow money or pay on their savings.
Borrowing becomes more expensive when rates are higher - with those on variable-rate mortgages being hit hard over the last year.
But are there any other ways the bank can tackle inflation? The Mirror asked three financial experts to find out if there is anything else that could be done.
Quantitative Tightening
One route that Alice Haine, personal finance analyst at Bestinvest believes the Bank of England could take was for it to "ramp up" its quantitative tightening (QT) programme – which basically means taking money out of the economy in order to stifle demand.
During the pandemic, Alice explained that the central bank "rode to the economy’s rescue" by cutting interest rates and pumping out money – in the form of quantitative easing (QE) – at a rapid rate.
Quantitative easing is done by buying bonds or other assets, with this, the interest rate will decrease and the rate of inflation will go up.
She added: "The Bank is currently reducing its Government bond holdings by £80billion per year, after buying £875billion of gilts to stimulate the economy during successive quantitative easing programmes between 2009 and 2021.
"With the Monetary Policy Committee set to review the pace of this reduction in September, some might question why the pace hasn’t been stepped up a bit.
"After all, if quantitative easing is so effective at stimulating the economy, could quantitative tightening have the reverse effect?
"During a recent Treasury Select Committee hearing Governor Andrew Bailey pushed back against criticism that the unwinding of quantitative easing was destabilising markets though he also said quantitative tightening was not its active monetary policy instrument of choice.
"Whether quantitative tightening can or will become an effective part of the Bank of England's toolkit to squash inflation in the future remains to be seen."
Raise taxes and cut spending
Laura Suter, head of personal finance at AJ Bell said the Government has more options than the Bank of England in ways to tackle inflation but they were all "very unpalatable".
One of those options is to raise taxes and another was to raise taxes and cut public spending - almost like a second round of austerity.
She said: "Prime minister Rishi Sunak could opt to raise taxes, cut Government spending or cut back on the cost of living payments to try to limit inflation, in a bid to reduce household spending further.
"But those options put further pressure on the households that are already at breaking point – not to mention the fact that they are politically unpleasant with a general election looming.”
Sarah Coles, head personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown said the Government could definitely take this step to "suck more money out of the economy".
She said: "This would be a pretty brutal option, because it would mean hitting the living standards of millions of people who have already been pushed to breaking point.
"To make matters worse, it would also be likely to push us into a recession, which would mean job losses, and leave some people facing even more impossible circumstances.
"The horrible impact this would have on people means this is likely to be considered a last resort, and there’s every chance we’re not there yet."
Sarah explained that the Government might also intervene to "strengthen the pound" in order to cut the costs of imports however this would again "come at a cost" and would depress exports.
She noted that this would only likely to be considered as a last-ditch effort if there were worrying falls in the pound in the coming weeks.
Be forceful in interest rate rise messaging
Although we may not want to accept it Alice Haine said that raising interest rates was the "most effective way" that the Bank of England could stamp out persistently high inflation.
However, she noted that it takes time - potentially up to two years to deliver the results.
One strategy the Bank of England could impose would be "much more forceful" in the messaging it delivers around the interest rate decisions.
She explained: "If the Bank make it explicitly clear in its wider communications such as interviews with the media or speeches, that it will go to every length to tame inflation it will help the message filter through to all sections of the economy that tough times lie ahead.
"If businesses and households fear that even more punitive rate rises are ahead, they may take action to curb expenditure.
"For households, this could mean cancelling or pausing big-ticket purchases such as buying a car, going on holiday or going ahead with a house renovation.
"For businesses, this could mean companies push back harder on pay rise demands – offering increases that aren’t inflation-aligned."
