UK inflation lifted to its highest since December after a sharp jump in diesel and petrol prices caused by the conflict in the Middle East, according to official figures.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the Iran crisis was \u201cnot our war, but it is pushing up bills for families and businesses\u201d as a result.<\/p>\n
The rate of Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation increased to 3.3% in March from 3% in February, the Office for National Statistics said.<\/p>\n
The increase was in line with predictions from economists.<\/p>\n
Higher motor fuel was the main driver of the acceleration in inflation, increasing by 8.7% month-on-month \u2013 the largest increase since June 2022, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
The ONS found that the average price of petrol rose by 8.6p per litre between February and March to 140.2p per litre. This marked the highest price since August 2024.<\/p>\n
Diesel prices meanwhile increased by 17.6p per litre in March to an average of 158.7p per litre, the highest price since November 2023.<\/p>\n
Office for National Statistics chief economist Grant Fitzner said: \u201cInflation climbed in March, largely due to increased fuel prices, which saw their largest increase for over three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAir fares were another upward driver this month, alongside rising food prices.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only significant offset came from clothing costs, where prices rose by less than this time last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Reeves said: \u201cWe\u2019re acting to protect people from unfair price rises if they occur to bring down food prices at the till, and are boosting long-term energy security \u2014 building a stronger, more secure economy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK inflation lifted to its highest since December after a sharp jump in diesel and petrol prices caused…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1990,15712,19284,13316,15713,34,9044,137,2676,15704],"class_list":{"0":"post-77621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-conflict-in-the-middle-east","9":"tag-consumer-prices-index","10":"tag-diesel-prices","11":"tag-food-prices","12":"tag-inflation-figures","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-office-for-national-statistics","15":"tag-petrol-prices","16":"tag-rachel-reeves","17":"tag-uk-inflation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116446998249847565","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}