UK inflation fell by more than economists had expected in November to 3.2%, down from 3.6% in October, strengthening expectations that the Bank of England will cut interest rates at its meeting on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Consumer price inflation declined more sharply than forecast, according to figures published on Wednesday by the Office for National Statistics. While economists had widely anticipated a fall, many had expected inflation to come in closer to 3.5%.<\/p>\n
Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, also eased more than expected, falling from 3.4% to 3.2%. Services inflation, a key gauge for the Bank of England as it assesses domestically generated price pressures, edged down from 4.5% to 4.4%.<\/p>\n
The data has made a rate cut by the Bank\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee all but certain, according to analysts. Most expect policymakers to lower the base rate by a quarter of a point from 4% to 3.75%.<\/p>\n
Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the ONS, said: \u201cInflation fell notably in November to its lowest annual rate since March. Lower food prices, which traditionally rise at this time of the year<\/a>, were the main driver of the fall with decreases seen, particularly for cakes, biscuits, and breakfast cereals.<\/p>\n \u201cTobacco prices also helped pull the rate down, with prices easing slightly this month after a large rise a year ago. The fall in the price of women\u2019s clothing was another downward driver.<\/p>\n \u201cThe increase in the cost of goods leaving factories slowed, driven by lower food inflation, while the annual cost of raw materials for businesses continued to rise.\u201d<\/p>\n Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for <\/strong>Apple<\/strong><\/a> and <\/strong>Android<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK inflation fell by more than economists had expected in November to 3.2%, down from 3.6% in October,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[936,748,112238,6643,393,4884,1144,15165,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-637632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-bank-of-england","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-consumer-price-inflation","12":"tag-energy-prices","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-office-for-national-statistics","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115733684916514415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}