"Elevated level of UK inflation stems largely from the impact of external shocks, rather than excess money growth," Bank of England Chief Economist Huw Pill said on Friday, as reported by Reuters.

"Threat exists that higher headline inflation leads to second-round effects in prices, wages and costs," Pill added. "Current challenge for UK monetary policy is to contain those second-round effects and return inflation to the target."

Market reaction

These comments don't seem to be having a significant impact on the GBP/USD pair, which was last seen gaining 0.13% on the day at 1.2276.