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mpc: 21 Turning to pay developments, as the Committee had previously discussed, one of the most quantitatively important impacts of higher oil prices on potential supply could come indirectly if workers resisted the necessary adjustment in real wage growth. The rise in energy prices would require the growth rate of the real consumption wage to be slower than it otherwise would have been if employment growth were to be sustained. So far, there had been no significant evidence of a change in pay settlements, and regular pay growth had remained subdued in the year to August. However, it was a quiet part of the year in terms of the number of pay settlements; more evidence about wage developments would become available in the first quarter of 2006, as January was a particularly important month for private sector pay settlements. There were also no signs, as yet, of medium-run inflation expectations being dislodged by the rise in oil prices. The fall in measured pay drift over the past year (the gap between earnings and settlements) had been correlated with the increase in the labour force. It was possible that this had been related to the increase in net inward migration, but it might simply reflect the normal cyclical response of both drift and labour supply growth.