Food and fuel price rises set to drive up inflation

Wednesday 19 September 2012 10:18 BST
Comments

The Bank of England faces a fresh inflation threat next year as prices are driven back up by soaring food and petrol costs, experts have warned.

Consumer prices index (CPI) inflation eased from 2.6 per cent to 2.5 per cent during August, according to the Office for National Statistics.

This was largely thanks to the contrast with a year earlier – when gas and electricity bills were rising – and smaller rises in clothes and footwear prices from a year ago.

But the effect of these was largely cancelled out by average petrol prices jumping by 3.5p a litre on the month to stand at £1.35. Worryingly, Brent crude has risen by almost 30 per cent since bottoming out in June and now stands at just over $117 a barrel.

Although the CPI is set to fall again in September as last year's energy price rises drop out of the figures, analysts said this could be a temporary respite with inflation soon moving back to 3 per cent.

Victoria Clarke, an economist at Investec, said: "From here we do expect inflation to moderate a touch further. However we should caution that we do expect this trend to turn upwards again soon, with sources of upward pressure emerging over the months ahead including from university tuition fees, higher food prices following the recent US droughts and higher pump fuel prices too.

"We see those pressures as potentially pushing CPI inflation back to the 3 per cent mark by the middle of next year."

The good news for the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is that core inflation – stripping out volatile energy and food costs – is on the way down at 2.1 per cent.

This could help to crystalise the thinking of the MPC on additional quantitative easing.

Andrew Goodwin, the Ernst & Young Item Club senior economic adviser, said: "The MPC should have plenty of leeway to provide further policy support, once the current tranche of QE has been completed, should they deem it necessary."

The ONS has launched a consultation into changing data used in the retail prices index, which could see pensions' calculations changed.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in