Bank of England Governor Bailey said the public must be confident in the 2% inflation target.

LONDON, June 2 (Reuters) - Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Tuesday it was crucial to restore British inflation to target and boost public confidence that the central bank can achieve this goal.

When asked whether inflation above 2% for much of the 2020s meant the BoE needed to reconsider its price target framework, Bailey said: "We have to focus more on how to manage the path back to the target and ultimately get there because we have to convince the public that the target is realistically achievable."

When Bailey attended the annual hearing of the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, he also said that the answer to the failure of the inflation target was not to raise the inflation target to 3%.

The UK consumer price inflation rate fell to 2.8% in April. The Bank of England predicts that, assuming energy prices gradually decline during the year, the UK consumer price inflation rate will be close to 4% by the end of 2026.

Under the central bank's more pessimistic forecast scenario, in which energy prices rise further and prices of other goods and services generally rise, the central bank predicts that inflation may exceed 6% in early 2027, although this is still well below the peak of more than 11% in October 2022.

"It's extremely frustrating...I would have thought that we would be here this afternoon and that inflation would be on target, and I thought the signs were that we could actually do that. (But) we didn't, and I think the overshoot was almost entirely due to the situation in the Gulf," Bailey said.