Britain Keeps Interest Rates Unchanged Amid Signs of Recovery LONDON - The Bank of England on Thursday left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low as Britain's economy sputtered toward recovery. Britain's central bank said it would keep its interest rate at 0.5 percent, where it has been since March 2009. The bank also left its bond-purchasing program unchanged at 375 billion pounds, or about $617 billion. The British economy continued to recover toward the end of last year and fewer people are out of work, but headwinds persist. "There's the fiscal squeeze, the weak state of the euro zone economy and the still-fragile banking system," Samuel Tombs, an economist at Capital Economics, said before the rate decision. But there are also some powerful elements driving the recovery. Recent economic data showed that disposable incomes rose in the third quarter, a second quarterly increase in a row, according to the Office for National Statistics. The unemployment rate has been dropping faster than some economists expected and house prices are rising. Mr. Tombs said that he had raised his economic growth forecast for this year to 3 percent from 2.5 percent. But, with electricity and gas bills continuing to rise last year, many consumers are not yet feeling better off, and there are concerns about new government spending cuts. Consumer confidence fell for a third month in December, according to GfK NOP, a market research firm. The chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said earlier this week that the government would seek an additional £25 billion in spending cuts after the 2015 election, with about half of that expected to come from welfare, he said. The governor of the Bank of England, Mark J. Carney, has pledged to start considering an interest rate increase only when the unemployment rate falls to 7 percent. The rate is currently at 7.4 percent and has been dropping faster than expected over the past months. Nonetheless, some economists expect interest rates to stay at the record low until at least the end of next year. The president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is expected to face questions about how to revive growth and reduce the risk of deflation in the 18-nation euro zone, of which Britain is not a member, at a news conference scheduled for 2.30 p.m. in Frankfurt. The E.C.B. is also to announce its monthly decision on the benchmark interest rate, which is expected to remain unchanged at 0.25 percent. The prospect of low rates in Britain, combined with government programs to spur mortgage lending, helped push house prices up by 8.4 percent last year, the biggest annual gain since 2006, according to the Nationwide Building Society. A Bank of England survey showed Wednesday that demand for mortgages rose at the fastest pace in at least six years. Even though house prices remain below their pre-crisis peak, the increase raised concerns among some economists and policy makers that the prices were inflated by government policy and could create a market bubble.