Ben Broadbent has hit out at critics who say the BoE’s rate-setting monetary Policy Committee did not foresee surging inflation over the past three years because its members shared similar backgrounds.

General prices are currently 2.3% in the UK, falling from 11% in October 2022, the highest rate in 40 years, as inflation was driven by rising oil prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as domestic cost-of-living pressures.

But Broadbent told the Times: “I think the place where there is the most groupthink is among those who [accuse people of] groupthink. It is something that people trot out. I dismiss the charge pretty strongly.”

The BoE, along with other central banks, has been criticised for forecasting the surge in inflation during the pandemic to be temporary.

But deputy governor says that the economic hibernation of two years of pandemic exposed “the limits of normal macroeconomics”, which all forecasters struggled to predict.

He points out that that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine provided a second unforseen inflation shock.

Broadbent adds that the UK’s inflation rate falling to 2.3% in the year to April from 3.2% was “getting there,” as it nears the BoE’s 2% target.

But he says that this “doesn’t mean [rate cuts] have to be made right now”.

Broadbent will leave the MPC after 13 years on the committee following its June meeting. He will be replaced by Clare Lombardelli, the chief economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, on 1 July.