An “age of uncertainty”, especially over the path of inflation, means that rapid interest rate cuts are unlikely to be coming to the UK, top Bank of England officials have said.

Huw Pill, chief economist at the Bank of England, said the central bank was unlikely to make “larger and more rapid cuts to interest rates” in the future thanks to the path of inflation.

“There is more work to do to squeeze those domestic underlying inflation out of the system. That entails maintaining some restrictiveness in the monetary policy stance,” Pill told MPs at the Treasury Select Committee.

“We’re living in an age of uncertainty,” added Alan Taylor, an external member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

US president Donald Trump’s plans for tariffs, energy price increases, and tax hikes in the October Budget, have added to uncertainty over the path of inflation and the economy in recent months.

Bank governor Andrew Bailey said that at “almost every meeting we have with businesses,” the question of National Insurance comes up.

He said that when the rise of National Insurance was announced, economists had been expecting higher prices, lower profit margins and lower employment as a result of those changes.

“We can see all of those… and when we ask firms, that’s exactly the answer we get,” added Bailey, stating that there had been a non-zero impact on inflation from the Budget and that the Bank had heard wages were being cut as a result of the hike.

However, while inflation was a concern for the Bank, Bailey explained that the UK economy was ultimately heading on a long-term path towards a decrease in price hikes.