BoE's Mann takes 'guarded view' on rate cut cycle

LONDON (Reuters) -Bank of England interest rate setter Catherine Mann said on Friday that she took a guarded view on the prospect of multiple rate cuts in the months ahead and stressed the need for policy to remain restrictive.

The U.S. economist was part of the majority of the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) members who kept Bank Rate at 5.0% this week. She was previously a staunch advocate of raising interest rates aggressively as British inflation shot into double digits.

On Friday, she repeated her view that borrowing costs needed to stay high to help "purge" inflationary behaviour in businesses and consumers.

"While agreeing with the majority for a hold at the meeting just concluded, I have a guarded view on initiating a cutting cycle," Mann said in the text of a speech due to be delivered in Lithuania.

"A risk management assessment implies that it is better, under inflation uncertainty, to remain restrictive for longer, until right tail risks to the inflation process dissipate, and then to cut more aggressively."

The BoE on Thursday said it would take a cautious approach to cutting interest rates as wage growth looked set to remain too high for comfort and policymakers remained divided over how fast longer-term inflation pressures were fading.

(Reporting by Andy Bruce Editing by William Schomberg)