Members of the Monetary Policy Committee are facing criticism for continuing to hike interest rates, potentially causing damage to the economy, when a pause should, or could, have been agreed earlier in the year.It is agreed that changes to monetary policy take up to three months to work their way through the economy. Therefore, a pause earlier in the year would have been effective in allowing the economy to “catch up” and would have provided some relief to people struggling with the cost-of-living crisis without seriously damaging the fight against inflation.Publicly, Jeremy Hunt and his colleagues at the Treasury have supported Andrew Bailey in his battle to bring inflation down, and it remains possible that the Government's pledge to halve the rate of inflation by the end of the year may still be fulfilled.However, the cost to the economy may have been too high a price to pay, particularly if the country falls into a damaging recession either later this year or early next.It is believed that irrespective of the pause that was announced last week in the Bank’s cycle of interest rate hikes the economy is likely to grow at an even slower pace in the second half of the year if it registers any growth at all.Beyond Currency Market Commentary:Aims to provide deep insights into the political and economic events worldwide that can cause currencies to change and how this can affect your FX Exposure.