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mpc: 14 On the expenditure side, survey evidence continued to point to firm investment intentions, consistent with reports by the Bank's regional Agents. Retail sales had risen in December, and surveys pointed to firm annual growth in January, though because of the weakness in spending a year earlier this would be consistent with a broadly flat volume of seasonally adjusted sales on the month. The Bank's regional Agents had raised their scores for both retail sales and consumer services. There had been some deterioration in consumer confidence between the two waves of the January GfK survey, which straddled the Committee's policy meeting, and that might suggest an impact from the most recent interest rate increase. But there had been little correlation between consumer confidence and consumer spending in the past, so this was not compelling evidence of slowing consumer spending growth in response to past interest rate increases. Although it was too early to be sure, there was some evidence that higher interest rates might be having an effect in the housing market, with a mixed batch of indicators recently. There had been a sharp drop in mortgage loan approvals in December, and the preview of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' (RICS) survey suggested a continuing fall in the balance on new buyer enquiries in January. In contrast, the RICS ratio of sales to stocks remained high. Even if the housing market did show signs of turning, the implications for consumption were by no means clear ­ there might be different correlations from those recorded in the past, depending on which factors were currently driving the housing market and household spending.