The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee has decided to keep UK interest rates on hold at 5.0%.

Despite a flood of data pointing to a downward trend in the economy, the Bank was widely expected to keep interest rates on hold after cutting them by a quarter of a percentage point in April.

The Bank of England’s MPC are known to be generally reluctant to have back-to-back rate cuts, so another cut is not expected by financial analyst’s until June.

Despite last month’s rate cut, figures from Moneyfacts suggest that about one in four UK lenders have still not reduced their standard variable rate in the past month to their customers.