Just over four years since the last interest rate rise on 5 March 2009, commentators agree when the next rise comes, it will be slow, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

In its News and Views out today, the Council of Mortgage Lenders said policymakers are aware that many households will only be able to manage slow and modest increases in borrowing costs.

The mortgage lender trade body quoted the incoming governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, who said to the Treasury Select Committee earlier this year: “To ensure the monetary policy committee retains adequate room to respond to the developments in economic conditions, it will be sensible for any tightening in monetary conditions to come about first through an increase in bank rate that could, if necessary, be reversed easily.”

Wary of the fragility of the economy, most commentators agree that we are unlikely to see any tightening of policy until economic recovery is well established and some growth in incomes has been restored, it said.

“What we have seen in the aftermath of the financial crisis is that that borrowers in aggregate tend to prioritise mortgage debt even when their real incomes fall. We would expect this to continue once the Bank rate begins to edge slowly upwards again in the coming years,” said the CML.