--- title: "Quantitative tightening: the next chapter − speech by Dave Ramsden" description: Strip out the QT recap and this is a hawkish speech. The full read is on Helious, with the Treasury and equity market reaction. source: Helious canonical: "https://helious.io/news/fa8395a147aac2b03b974cd19b518bc2/quantitative-tightening-the-next-chapter-speech-by-dave" --- BOE 28 Sept 2026, 10:00 UTC # Quantitative tightening: the next chapter − speech by Dave Ramsden ## SPEECH DIGEST HAWKISH medium confidence · 41.4k characters read Strip out the QT recap and this is a hawkish speech. The September package was already public and priced: £368bn of APF gilts run down at £46bn a year to end-2034, £120bn kept back to back banknotes, and gilts rallied on the day because the Street had positioned for more QT. The new content is Ramsden on Bank Rate. He flags upside risks to inflation, says there could be a case for raising Bank Rate, and argues his holds since March have in effect tightened policy relative to where he expected to be. One member floating a hike is the delta; everything else confirms the prevailing read. **What’s new: **The QT architecture is not new. The multi-year path, the £46bn annual pace, the £120bn for banknote backing and the planned sales to the DMO were all in the 17 September package and are priced, with the gilt rally on the day showing the market had expected more QT. Genuinely new is Ramsden's Bank Rate framing: an explicit "case for increasing Bank Rate" and the claim that steady holds since March amount to a de facto tightening. Nothing else here moves the dial. ### KEY FINDINGS - Ramsden: "were upside pressures on the inflation outlook to continue to build, there could be a case for increasing Bank Rate." Puts a hawkish tail on the front end from a member who voted for a cut in February; gilt and OIS pricing should carry more hike risk. - Ramsden says "my holds to Bank Rate since March have effectively delivered a tightening relative to where I thought we might otherwise have been", having expected at least two cuts by now. Signals the effective stance is tighter than the February OIS curve implied, supporting higher front-end yields. - The September decision was a 6-3 hold at 3.75%, with Ramsden in the majority; the speech does not say whether the three wanted a cut or a hike. The size and composition of the minority is the key input into pricing the next meeting. - The MPC will unwind the remaining £368bn of gilts at £46bn a year to end-2034, £20bn via sales and the rest by maturities, with £120bn held back to back banknotes. A slower, more predictable path than feared; the fall in 30-year yields on the announcement says it was already discounted. - The Bank Executive intends to sell the £146bn of 2035-2049 APF gilts to the DMO rather than to the market, longest maturities first, subject to HMT agreement and with the approach announced by April 2027. Removes a chunk of long-end supply from the private market, a structural support for the long end if it goes ahead. ### FROM THE DOCUMENT Whilst the policy stance continues to provide restrictiveness, were upside pressures on the inflation outlook to continue to build, there could be a case for increasing Bank Rate. Therefore, my holds to Bank Rate since March have effectively delivered a tightening relative to where I thought we might otherwise have been. At its September meeting, the MPC voted by a majority of 6-3 to leave Bank Rate unchanged at 3.75%. I voted in the majority, as I have since the outbreak of the conflict in the Middle East to hold Bank Rate at 3.75%. On balance, most MPC members felt that the benefits from the predictability of a fixed pace outweighed the loss of flexibility. Given at the Bank of England, co-hosted by the Money, Macro and Finance Society Thank you to the Money, Macro and Finance Society (MMF) for co-hosting this event today. It’s a little over three years ago that I delivered my last speech on Quantitative Tightening (QT) footnote [1], where again the MMF kindly co-hosted the event. In my 2023 speech, I set out what the MPC and Bank had so far learnt after nearly a year of delivering the MPC’s first annual QT decision. After another three years of QT progress and learnings, we are now ready to move to the next chapter. The MPC’s September decision, alongside the set of announcements from the Bank Executive and HM Treasury (HMT), marked a significant step in the approach to unwinding the assets built up through Quantitative Easing (QE) – a process dubbed QT. [ Read the full Bank of England speech at the source →](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2026/september/dave-ramsden-speech-on-quantitative-tightening) Copy link [Follow this live on the Helious desk →](https://helious.io/)