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mpc: 17 The Committee noted that the growth in consumption in 2003 had been underpinned by strong growth in personal disposable income, and that the relationship between house prices and consumption did not appear to have been as close recently as during the rise and fall in house prices in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Its central projection incorporated a judgment that this weaker relationship would continue to prevail, both in the near term, as house prices continued to rise rapidly, and later in the forecast period, as housing inflation slowed sharply. Nevertheless the central projection incorporated a slowdown in consumption growth. But there were clearly risks to this view in addition to those concerning the relationship between house prices and consumption. On the one hand, consumption and its determinants had grown more rapidly than the Committee had expected for several years. On the other hand, the increases in house prices that had already occurred entailed a continuing rise in mortgage borrowing. That in turn meant that household income gearing was likely to rise over the next few years towards levels last seen in the early 1990s. That could increase the vulnerability of the household sector, and hence of consumption growth, to changes in interest rates and to any unforeseen slowdown in income growth.