The Bank of England should call a halt today to its radical drive to jump-start the economy with huge injections of newly printed money, The Times Monetary Policy Committee recommends today.

Burgeoning signs that the recession is coming to an end, with recovery taking hold, should lead the Bank to put on hold its campaign to combat the slump by “printing” money, at least temporarily, eight of the nine economic experts on the Times panel say.

Professor Charles Goodhart of the London School of Economics, the dissenting member of the panel, said that the economy remained vulnerable and in need of further stimulus.

Professor Goodhart, a former member of the Bank’s MPC, said that the Bank should spend another £25 billion on the purchases of bonds, which it does to pump its newly created cash into the economy, taking the total to £150 billion. But he added that the Bank should change the focus of the quantitative easing (QE) scheme to make it more effective.

The rest of the panel urged the Bank to put the strategy on hold, at least for the moment, with most recommending that it leave the door open for further action if an economic upturn proves to be weak.

Bronwyn Curtis, head of global research at HSBC, warned: “The Bank is in danger of damaging its credibility by extending quantitative easing. Without a clear economic need for further action, it could arouse suspicion that the Bank’s primary objective was the cheap financing of the Government’s debt, rather than meeting the inflation target.”

Ms Curtis said that the existing scale of QE and drastic cuts in interest rates to 0.5 per cent would take time to have their full effect and so far appeared to be bolstering the economy.

Sushil Wadhwani, a former external member of the Bank’s MPC, agreed that recovery was emerging. “The short-term economic outlook is strongly positive,” he said. He added that the committee should pause for breath and could resume QE later if this proved necessary.

Sir Alan Budd, former chief economic adviser to the Treasury; Anatole Kaletsky, chief economics commentator at The Times; Martin Weale, director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research; and Geoffrey Dicks, former chief UK economist at RBS, all backed this call.

“For the moment, the MPC can pause while it watches the result of its earlier actions,” Sir Alan said.

Mr Dicks added: “There is nothing for the MPC to do but sit tight and see if the economy continues to recover along present lines.”

The strongest opposition to further printing of money to extend QE came from Sir Steve Robson, former Second Permanent Secretary at the Treasury.

Sir Steve dismissed the Bank’s QE scheme as having no relevance to whether a sustained recovery could be assured, pointing to the credit drought for consumers and companies as the crucial problem. He said that cracking that drought and boosting the flow of lending would “require the Government to take the bulk of the credit risk or to undertake another bank recapitalisation”.

Rupert Pennant-Rea, a former Deputy Governor of the Bank, was more confident over a recovery but added that there was nothing to suggest that the rebound would be strong, also citing credit strains as the big issue. He said that the Bank should halt QE for now, unless it was able to channel an additional £25 billion into easing stresses in the credit markets.

Professor Goodhart argued that this should be the Bank’s chief goal. He proposed that banks should be charged interest, at a rate of perhaps 2 per cent, for the cash they were hoarding in their official reserves with the Bank of England, giving them an incentive not to sit on these funds.

“Similarly, the Bank should try to recreate the commercial paper market and to channel its additional QE more directly to companies,” he said.

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