10:09

The average British household benefited from the Bank of England’s emergency interest rate cut in the financial crisis to the tune of almost £9,000 in pay and £90,000 in household wealth, according to its chief economist.

Speaking in Australia, Andy Haldane is defending some of the benefits from low interest rates just before Threadneedle Street looks to increase them to levels unseen since the 2008 crash began.

According to him, the impact of low rates and quantitative easing has been to keep more people in work - helping them with their earnings - and to keep borrowing costs cheap to help cut mortgage costs. Asset prices have also been inflated, helping those who held them - even if they got less on their cash savings held in bank accounts.

The significance of the loose monetary policy from the Bank is so significant, he says, that GDP in the UK would have been around 8% lower, unemployment 4 percentage points higher and the level of consumer prices 20% lower without its package to cut rates to 0.5% and inject £435bn into the economy through QE.

Just 4% of households were made £500 or more worse off when taking income and wealth effects together, he says.