Economy ‘may need bigger cash injection’

“I still think we might need to do some more,” Fisher, the central bank’s executive director for markets, said in an interview.

Most economists say the Bank will pump a further £50bn into the economy in February when the current programme of purchases of Government debt, announced in October, comes to a close.

The central bank sharply downgraded its expectations for growth and inflation for 2012 in its latest projections this month, signalling it may further expand its £275bn asset purchase programme.

Mr Fisher said he had supported the October decision to restart quantitative easing because he had been concerned about the worsening state of the economy since a marked slowdown at the end of 2010.

“I was trying to keep it on the table throughout the year because I was conscious of this deteriorating picture,” he said.

“For me it was a timing thing. I voted for £75bn because I thought it was the smallest amount I was absolutely sure we needed to do.”

For the moment the Bank’s policymakers see no case for increasing monetary stimulus before February, according to minutes of their November 9-10 rate setting meeting, despite a rising chance of a worst-case outcome for the eurozone crisis.

But looking ahead, the minutes said they were split on the likelihood of a further increase when its asset purchases were completed by the time of February’s meeting.

Fellow Bank policymakers Martin Weale and David Miles said last week more quantitative easing could be used if the economy worsens.

On the state of Britain’s economy, Mr Fisher said: “Things aren’t falling off a cliff – it is quite evenly balanced – but we are quite vulnerable to a shock.”

The country has known a lot worse, he told The Sunday Times.