Last Tuesdays British mortgage approvals for house purchase were slightly higher than expected in April, but still at a subdued level that points to further house price falls. The Bank of England said there were 43,201 mortgage approvals in April, up from 40,038 in March and better than analysts' forecasts of 41,000, though well below last year's level of 55,280, when house prices were falling rapidly. April's data marks the third consecutive monthly rise in mortgage approvals and shows banks are becoming more open to lending and that the worst may be over for the housing market. Net mortgage lending was roughly in line with analysts' forecasts, rising by £973 million, though this pales in comparison with a £5.604 billion increase in April last year. Consumer credit issuance was stronger than forecast at £314 million in April, but remained at a very low level. British house prices unexpectedly rose at their fastest monthly rate in 61/2 years in May, the Halifax house price survey showed last Thursday, but the mortgage lender cautioned market conditions remained difficult. Halifax said house prices rose 2.6 percent in May, the biggest increase October 2002, while the annual rate of decline eased to 13.6 percent from 17.7 percent in April. Bank of England policymakers reported they want much more information on how the economy is faring and subsequently held interest rates on Thursday at a record low of 0.5 percent and intend to maintain the pace of its 125 billion pound quantitative easing programme. Last Friday’s PPI Data reported British firms' input costs fell at their sharpest annual rate in 7-1/2 years in May as the price of oil and imported metals fell at a record pace, official data showed on Friday. Separate data showed British construction output fell at its sharpest quarterly rate since 1963 in the first three months of this year and at a far sharper pace than in the last estimate of Q1 GDP. The Office for National Statistics figures also showed output prices weakening broadly in line with expectations, suggesting that inflationary pressures are continuing to abate as the global economic downturn persists. The ONS said input prices fell 9.4 percent on the year in May, the steepest annual decline since November 2001, and lower than analysts' forecasts for a fall of 8.3 percent. Oil and imported metals prices fell by 42.2 percent and 15.5 percent on the year respectively. The data also showed output prices falling 0.3 percent on the year and core output prices were 1.2 percent higher than a year ago. Both readings were broadly in line with expectations.