M&S chair Archie Norman has slammed the Bank of England interest rates hikes as “totally ineffective” and claimed they did not “do very much [to] cool price increases”.
“‘What we’ve proved in the last three years is that monetary policy is totally ineffective,” Norman told Bloomberg.
“There’s a marginal effect but inflation was driven by global macro prices. It had no bearing on the price of gas. It had no real bearing on the price of food.”
“We probably sometimes listen a bit too much to central bankers.”
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Norman’s comment come after interest rates rose 14 times in the two years since December 2021, the fastest pace since the 1980s.
The chairman’s words follow in the wake of M&S’ chief executive Stuart Machin calling for the reform of “broken” business rates and comparing running a company in the UK to “running up a downwards escalator with a rucksack on your back”.
He added that retailers would be forced to increase prices if there was no help given on business rates.
