The Bank of England's key policy committee remains split over whether to do more to stimulate the economy.
The British Broadcasting Corporation reports that for a second month, one monetary policy committee member, David Miles, voted for a £25bn increase in the Bank's £375bn quantitative easing programme.
The committee voted unanimously to leave interest rates on hold at 0.5 per cent, minutes from December's meeting showed.
The minutes also show the MPC thought the economy would "probably" contract in the current quarter.
This was because growth in the third quarter had been boosted by temporary factors, such as the Olympics.
The MPC said recent business surveys and data suggested that underlying output would remain "broadly flat" in the near term.
The Bank faces a tricky dilemma as to whether to provide a further boost to the economy.
On the one hand, inflation continues to remain stubbornly high due to a string of supposedly one-off factors, while on the other, the UK is at risk of dipping back into recession for a third time.
The consumer prices index registered a 2.7 per cent increase from a year earlier in October, catching the committee by surprise.
The rate was up from 2.2 per cent the month before, and well above the Bank's two per cent target. Data for November, released since the meeting took place, showed inflation holding steady at 2.7 per cent.
The Bank blamed the acceleration in price rises on the increase in university tuition fees and rising food prices. City analysts suggest that inflation may creep even higher next year due to rising household energy bills.
"Inflation was likely to remain above the two per cent target for the next year or so, owing in part to the continuing impact of the rise in university tuition fees and higher domestic gas and electricity and other administered and regulated prices," the Bank minutes acknowledged.
"There was little that monetary policy could do to influence these prices directly," the committee added, implying that the Bank would not take any actions, such as raising interest rates, to head off the spike in inflation.
The Bank also pointed to the substantial risk to its forecast posed by "adverse weather disrupting planting in some crop-producing regions."
Some analysts have warned that global warming is leading to a steady increase in droughts and flooding. Food prices have risen this year in part due to droughts in the US and Russia, poor monsoon rain in India, and flooding in the UK.
Interest rates have been held by the Bank at a record low of 0.5 per cent since March 2009, since when the Bank has resorted to QE – buying up government debt with newly-created money – to stimulate the economy.
There has been no increase in the QE programme since July.
