Standard Variable Rate
If you are on a lender's standard variable interest rate, the lender has the right to change the rate at their discretion. As the rate rises and falls, so will your mortgage payments.
The standard variable rate is usually (but not always) the long-term rate your mortgage will revert to as and when any special initial interest rate (such as a low fixed rate or tracker rate) you may have had ends.
In practice rates tend to move in relation to the ongoing requirement of a lender to gather new business, competition in the market and changes in the LIBOR rate, which reflects the cost of money between banks and other lending institutions.
A standard variable rate will not necessarily be reduced (or increased) if the Bank of England should change its base rate.
