The Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee voted 7-1 to keep interest rates at 0.5%, according to details of its last meeting published this morning.
The minutes show that the July 7-8 policy meeting also discussed both easing and tightening policy.
MPC member Andrew Sentance voted for a second consecutive month to raise interest rates by 0.25 percentage points, as expected. But there was little sign other members of the committee were warming to his view, with easing mentioned as a policy option for the first time since February.
The minutes said that over the month the growth outlook had worsened, possibly into the medium term. Business surveys in Britain and overseas had weakened and pressure in bank funding markets meant the availability of credit to firms and households was not improving as much as before.
But the meeting also heard that near-term inflation prospects had worsened and consumer price inflation was likely to be higher in the rest of 2010 than envisaged in the May inflation report.
British inflation hit a 17-month high of 3.7% in April, but the emerging economic recovery looks more fragile than after previous recessions as budgetary austerity becomes the watchword across much of Europe.
The minutes said Chancellor George Osborne's June 22 budget - which proposed 25% cuts into most departments' spending - would probably slightly reduce growth.
The committee considered arguments both for a 'modest easing' in the stance of monetary policy and for a 'modest tightening'. Most members were happy on balance to leave the stance unchanged, confident that spare capacity in the economy would bring inflation back to target in the medium term once the effect of temporary factors had worn off.
