Banks were among the biggest fallers in early trading (at 1000), led by Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS.L) ahead of the base rate decision by the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee.

RBS dropped 2.1 per cent to 40.48p, Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) fell 2 per cent to 47.7p and Barclays (BARC.L) decreased 1.6 per cent to 259p.

Imperial Tobacco (IMT.L) dropped 1.9 per cent to 2,098p and Marks & Spencer (MKS.L) fell 1.6 per cent to 365.2p.

WPP (WPP.L) rose this morning (at 0957) after reports it would prevent its clients' adverts from appearing on US websites with illegal content.

The advertising and marketing company's share price increased by 1.7 per cent to 736.5p on the action by its media buying agency GroupM.

Financial Times publisher Pearson (PSON.L) and Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE.L) both saw share prices rise by 1.5 per cent to 1,154p and 1,403p, respectively.

Engineer IMI (IMI.L) and life insurance consolidator Resolution (RSL.L) reported increases of 1.2 per cent to 1,017p and 307.5p, respectively.

To receive more relevant articles like this one, why not sign up to our weekly newsletters, click here