Economy to rebound strongly

Bailey: Recovery may be quicker than forecast Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, says the vaccine programme could see the economy outdo expectations in the coming months. However, he added that while he now saw “upside risks” to the Bank’s growth forecasts, new COVID-19 variants may still derail the recovery. Asked what sort of recovery the UK could expect, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m now more positive, but with a large dose of caution.” His comments came as a monthly Ipsos Mori poll suggested public optimism over the UK’s economic outlook is at its highest since 2015. The survey saw 43% of respondents say they thought the economy would improve over the next 12 months, compared with 41% who thought the opposite. This lifted the economic optimism index to +2, up from -31 in February.