Britain’s annual inflation rate jumped to 9 percent last month, the highest in 40 years, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday.
The annual change in the Consumer Prices Index rose from 7 percent in March. Britons were braced for a steep rise in inflation in April following the reset in the government’s cap on household gas and electricity bills. That price cap, which is designed to protect some 22 million households, rose by 54 percent, reflecting a surge in wholesale natural gas prices late last year.
About three-quarters of the increase in the annual rate of inflation in April came from the jump in household utility bills, Grant Fitzner, the chief economist at the statistics agency, said.
Prices were also pushed higher by increases at restaurants, after a pandemic-era cut to V.A.T., a type of sales tax, expired. Food prices also rose at a faster pace than last year.
While the sharp rise in inflation was expected, the pain of such a high rate will be felt as price increases outstrip wage growth and intensify pressure on the government to support people on low incomes with the cost of living.
Inflation is unlikely to have peaked. Economists expect another steep increase in the energy price cap when it is reset again in October and reflects the rise in energy prices since Russia invaded Ukraine. The Bank of England predicts that Britain’s inflation rate will peak above 10 percent in the last quarter of the year.
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