The cost of borrowing is staying the same.

As expected, the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee held the base rate at 0.5 per cent on Thursday. It was the first time since October that the MPC has frozen the rate.

It remains at its lowest level since the Bank was founded in 1694.

The Committee also voted to continue with the programme, announced last month, of asset purchases - so-called quantitative easing (QE) - totalling £75billion financed by the issue of central bank reserves.

The Committee reported that just over £26billion of asset purchases had been made since March 5 and that it would take a further two months to complete that programme.

Rob Procter, deputy chief executive of Kent Reliance Building Society, based in Chatham, said the interest rate decision was expected.

He had not wanted to see any further cuts because that would hit savers again and savers had already suffered particularly badly from falling interest rates.

There were seven or eight savers for every borrower and older people dependant on interest from their savings had seen their income more than halved.

"I don’t think a rate cut would have helped at all," he said. "It’s a watershed. They’ve gone down as far as they’re going. The next move will be upwards but it’s probably not going to be this year."

It was inevitable that eventually interest rates and taxes would have to rise because of the massive taxpayer bailout of failing banks.

Mr Procter welcomed the decsion to press on with QE, saying it could help the economy get moving again.

The CBI, the employers organisation, said it was too early to judge how quickly QE would begin to affect the wider economy, "but the first tentative signs of the impact on gilt yields, corporate spreads and commercial paper issue have been encouraging".

There is some evidence that QE has restored some confidence, with more money flowing through to businesses and individuals. However, there are still complaints that not enough money is getting to the businesses and house-buyers who need it, or that it has done anything to hasten the end of recession.