Kate Barker, a member of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, will use business surveys and housing market indicators to judge whether the downside risks to the UK's inflation outlook have increased.

Speaking in Southampton on Tuesday, Barker said that business surveys were often used as an early indication of how events in financial markets will impact the rest of the economy, but noted that survey data often presented too gloomy a picture initially.

The risk of a modest downward