It may convey information about our reaction function. But such a commitment is not easy to design. If too general, it will not add anything to our existing – and over-riding – commitment to do whatever it takes to hit the inflation target. If too precise, it will not capture the myriad of factors that affect the outlook for inflation. The array of judgements underlying the Committee’s policy decisions are not easily summarised by reference to one or two economic variables. The Committee’s preferred approach is to describe its assessment of the outlook for output and inflation, and allow the public and markets to make their own assessment of the likely future path of interest rates. In the most recent Inflation Report published in May, the  2  BIS Review 86/2009  Committee judged it was more likely than not that CPI inflation would be below the 2% inflation target in two or three years time if interest rates followed a path implied by market yields and the stock of purchased assets increased to £ Market participants subsequently revised down their view about the pace at which Bank Rate was likely to rise. 2. Strengthening the policy framework  I remain firmly convinced that an inflation targeting framework should continue to be central to the design of macroeconomic policy in the UK. The benefits of low and stable inflation are clear and well understood.
I do not think it is coincidence that arguably the two most significant monetary policy decisions taken over the past year – the decision to reduce Bank Rate by 1.5 percentage points in November and the announcement in February that the Committee had sought approval to use the Asset Purchase Facility to conduct large scale asset purchases – occurred in months when the Inflation Report was published. The quarterly forecast round provides an opportunity for the Committee to reassess thoroughly its view of the economic outlook. This view is then explained and communicated via the Inflation Report and in particular through the projections for GDP growth and inflation contained in the Report. In both November and February, the judgement of the Committee was that, without further substantial easing in monetary policy, there was a significant risk of a large and persistent undershoot of the inflation target. Given the transparency of these judgements and the clarity of the target, it would have been courageous not to have taken the decisions we did. The inflation target is symmetric. Likewise, the discipline it imposes on the MPC is symmetric. The inflation target has been instrumental in ensuring that monetary policy has responded boldly and decisively to the events that have unfolded since the autumn. And, when the time comes, the clarity and transparency of the inflation targeting framework will ensure that the Committee takes the right decisions on the way back up, however courageous or unpopular those decisions might appear.