Howard Mustoe
business reporter

Hello! Welcome to the afternoon shift. The business and busyness continue until 21:30. Stay with us. 

Bank deputy governor Ben Broadbent, uses former Bank of England governor, Sir Meryvn King's defence that the UK economy is doing just fine thank you very much, and it is the global economy causing all the problems for Bank policymakers. Global shocks are "unforecast-able" he says.  We haven't seen this defence for a couple of years.

"Progress in terms of normalisation has been mixed, but growth has ticked down," explains Bank of England governor Mark Carney. "We do expect even in the face of global weakness for growth to still accelerate. Core inflation has been softer than expected but part of that could be the persistence from exchange rates. Wage growth and productivity has grown in line with expectations. There is mixed progress. We have resilient domestic demand, and robust private domestic demand... the point is bringing the rate back to target in a sustainable fashion and keep it there."

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There are a few things that have changed to push market expectations of an interest rate rise back, says Bank of England governor Mark Carney. They include falls in the price of risk-free assets but there has been "quite a big sell-off" of riskier assets, Mr Carney says.

On top of that is the outlook for global growth since August. China's economic slowdown, combined with lower commodity prices have lowered expectations for an interest rate rise, he says.

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"Remember, remember the 5th of November," says Bank of England governor Mark Carney as he begins his press conference on his interest rate decision, stressing "domestic strength and foreign weakness".

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And now we know why the pound has dipped: a rise in interest rate rises could be even further out than we all first thought. The Bank of England, external says that since August's inflation report, the "path for interest rates rises implied by the market rates has fallen by around 40 basis points", such that it only reaches 0.75% in the second quarter of 2017 compared with the third quarter of 2016 just three months ago.

In other words, unless the global economy, commodities prices and inflation all pick up significantly next year: don't expect a rate rise.

The Bank says that also implies interest rates will rise to 1.25% by the end of 2018. So as in August, the "slow gradual path" of interest rate rises Bank governor Mark Carney keeps telling us there will be, is getting narrower, faster and steeper.

The pound dipped 0.7% against the dollar to buy $1.52, after the Bank of England chose to keep interest rates on hold. 

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The Bank of England says inflation will stay below 1% until the second half of 2016. That's as a result of continuing lower costs for energy, food and other imports. 

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The Bank of England has trimmed its forecast for economic growth for this year and 2016 and warned that emerging markets could get stuck in a rut of slower growth. Growth is seen at:

• 2.7%  this year
• 2.5% in 2016
• 2.7% in 2017, just a touch weaker over the three-year period than the Bank predicted in August and above most economists' expectations.

This is new. The Bank has said it will continue to reinvest the proceeds of bonds maturing from the £375bn of quantitative easing assets that it bought to spur economic growth until it has raised interest rates to around 2%.   

Ian McCafferty has been voting to raise interest rates by 0.25% since the summer. None of his colleagues on the MPC has been brave enough to join him yet, as remains the case this month. Interest rates remain at 0.5%.  

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In a move that will come as a surprise to only those living in a galaxy far, far away, the Bank of England has held interest rates for the 80th month in a row. 

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India's Tata Steel said its profit rose 22%, external in the three months to September. The result beat analyst expectations, amidst a backdrop of falling steel prices and plant closures globally. Net profit rose to $232m in the period. It said it was helped during the period by the sale of "quoted investments", which helped offset cheaper imports in India and Europe from the world's top steel producer, China.

Are we reaching a tipping point for electric cars? Gareth Dunsmore from Nissan – the company behind the best-selling all-electric Nissan Leaf – thinks so. He told the World Service's Business Daily that the electric car industry is “the most exciting journey the industry has gone on since the car was invented”. 

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The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has been urged to suspend the sale of shares in Royal Bank of Scotland, amid a warning that continuing to sell shares in the bank at its current share price could leave the UK taxpayer £14bn out of pocket.

MPs will debate a motion in the House of Commons later today to to suspend the sale of RBS shares pending a full consideration of the other options, including turning it into a network of regional banks. 

Think tank the New Economics Foundation, external has sent the chancellor an open letter, in which it says it "is now clear that the taxpayer cannot make its money back by selling RBS to the private sector". 

In fact, the NEF goes claims that at the bank's current share price, the taxpayer is likely to make a £14bn loss from the sale.  

The Treasury sold 5.4% of its RBS shares in August at 330p a share. It raised £2.1bn in doing so, but made a loss of 30% compared with the price it paid for each share when it rescued the bank in 2008 and 2009.