The Bank of England voted 8-1 on Thursday to keep Britain’s interest rates at the record low of 0.5 percent.

Only one committee member, Ian McCafferty, dissented. UK interest rates have now remained unchanged for more than six years.

In a statement made yesterday, the Bank of England governor Mark Carney reiterated yesterday that Britain will not necessarily wait for the Fed to move first.

“The exact timing of the Fed move is not decisive for the timing of the move by the Bank of England.

“We will take our responsibilities. We will determine the timing for the start of the process of monetary policy normalization.”

Former Bank of England policymaker Andrew Sentence has also spoken out on the subject, telling the BBC’s Today programme that central banks in the UK and the US “need to be courageous” and raise interest rates, and that the banks are focusing too much on short term factors such as falling oil prices.