{"id":77655,"date":"2026-04-22T07:07:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/77655\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:07:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:07:24","slug":"iran-war-drives-uk-inflation-up-to-3-3-in-major-blow-for-reeves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/77655\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran war drives UK inflation up to 3.3% in major blow for Reeves"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK inflation rose in March, latest figures released on Wednesday have revealed, in a clear sign of the impact <\/a>of the economy from the Iran-US war.<\/p>\n

The latest data is the first from the Office for National Statistics to include elevated petrol and diesel costs since the start of the conflict. Prices have gone up as result of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz shipping corridor.<\/p>\n

The ONS figures showed Consumer Prices Index inflation rose 3.3 per cent in the year to March, up from 3 per cent in February.<\/p>\n

The increase marks a blow for Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who made cutting the cost of living her number one priority. Research by the Resolution Foundation has found<\/a> the average household will be \u00a3480 worse off this year due to increased energy costs.<\/p>\n

In response, Ms Reeves said the Iran crisis was \u201cnot our war, but it is pushing up bills for families and businesses\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Chancellor<\/p>\n

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said the Iran crisis was ‘not our war, but it is pushing up bills for families and businesses’ (PA)<\/p>\n

She continued: \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s my number one priority to keep costs down.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur economic plan is the right one and has put us in a stronger position to support families in the face of this new crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pointing to measures announced before the conflict she said: \u201cWe\u2019ve taken \u00a3117 off energy bills, frozen rail fares and protected motorists with the fuel duty freeze.<\/p>\n

\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

The rise in inflation also means the Bank of England is unlikely to cut interest rates<\/a> any time soon. Before the Iran<\/a> war, it had signalled that it might cut rates two or three times this year from the present 3.75 per cent.<\/p>\n

That would have led to cheaper new mortgages and lower borrowing costs for businesses.<\/p>\n

The news on inflation comes amid fears the a further escalation in the Middle East conflict could also impact government borrowing.<\/p>\n

The influential Resolution Foundation has found that a \u201csevere but plausible scenario\u201d, in which the conflict intensifies and delivers the largest hits to the economy, would result in Government borrowing increasing by \u00a316 billion a year in 2029-30.<\/p>\n

RAC data from Thursday 16 April showed that the average price of a litre of petrol at UK forecourts was 158.1p, 25p more expensive than when the war began on February 28.<\/p>\n

The average price of a litre of diesel sits at 191.2p, up 49p compared with the start of the war.<\/p>\n

Economists at Oxford Economics said they expect the rise in pump prices to add between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points to the rate of inflation in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK inflation rose in March, latest figures released on Wednesday have revealed, in a clear sign of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15712,28276,3487,28277,34,9044,2676,24924,15704],"class_list":{"0":"post-77655","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-iran","8":"tag-consumer-prices-index","9":"tag-diesel-costs","10":"tag-energy-bills","11":"tag-government-borrowing","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-office-for-national-statistics","14":"tag-rachel-reeves","15":"tag-resolution-foundation","16":"tag-uk-inflation"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116447100539253213","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77655","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=77655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}