Heavy discounts curb inflation on the high street

Consumers were given a fillip yesterday when shop price inflation came in flat in September.

Retail prices last month were 2.7 per cent up on a year ago, unchanged from August, with heavy discounting by clothing and electricals retailers helping to keep inflation stable, according to the British Retail Consortium-Nielsen Shop Price Index. While food prices remained static at 5 per cent, non-food inflation fell by 0.1 per cent to 1.3 per cent in September.

Stephen Robertson, the BRC's director-general, said: "The pressures on prices from world commodities, import inflation and January's VAT rise haven't gone away, but they haven't worsened either."