(Bloomberg) -- Bank of England rate setter Jonathan Haskel said interest-rate cuts should be “a long way off” in an interview with the Financial Times. 

The external member of the Monetary Policy Committee said that he would favor both a later start and a slower pace of monetary easing. Currently, markets are pricing in almost three quarter-point reductions this year, starting in August.

Haskel joins fellow hawk Catherine Mann in pushing back against expectations in financial markets. In an interview with Bloomberg earlier this week, Mann warned that investors were pricing in too many cuts this year and that the BOE was unlikely to move before the US Federal Reserve.

While Haskel and Mann both ditched their calls to raise rates last week, both have cautioned that they are not prepared for a cut from the current 16-year high of 5.25%.

Haskel, who revised his vote partly on the basis of better-than-expected inflation figures, told the FT that the BOE’s surveys of businesses showed that wage growth remained too high and was likely to ease only slowly.

Mann, too, said that stronger wage growth and stickier services inflation in the UK mean that the BOE is unlikely to pre-empt the US Federal Reserve with an interest rate cut. 

Read More: BOE’s Mann Says Markets Pricing Too Many UK Rate Cuts This Year  

The MPC members’ stance contrasts with last week’s comments by BOE Governor Andrew Bailey, who said the UK is “on the way” to winning the fight and officials need not wait until inflation hits the 2% before cutting rates.

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