Bank of England unlikely to follow Fed's lead, says Major

The UK remained unlikely to raise interest rates rapidly in the wake of last week's landmark US Federal Reserve decision, a former prime minister said on Sunday.

Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen lifted US rates by 0.25 percentage points, which had the potential to put pressure on the Bank of England to do the same.

But Sir John Major told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that he doubted Mark Carney would do anything quickly.

"The Fed have just ticked up interest rates a little. I think this will be a very slow process", he said.

"I don't think we're going to suddenly see a hige spiral in interest rates."

The UK rate has been held at 0.5% for more than six years, with Governor Carney previously indicating rates would stay low "for some time".

Sir John did tell Andrew Marr that he thought the UK's economy remained in much better health than we he moved into number 10 in 1990.

At the time, inflation was at 10% and interest rates stood at 14%.

Sir John did pick that 2016 would be a year of "faster" growth, particularly in Europe, but with a proviso that some larger economies might flounder.

"I think three large economies will probably be in difficulty next year - Russia, Brazil and China will slow a little", he said.