UK inflation reached 9.4 per cent in the year to June, after standing at 9.1 per cent in May, according to official figures from the Office for National Statistics [ONS].
Inflation is expected to reach or even exceed 11 per cent by the end of 2022, amid soaring fuel and food prices.
The ONS' latest numbers showed that the average petrol price stood 184 pence per litre in June, the highest since 1990 when the figure started to be recorded. This was also a significant rise from the 129.7 pence average price recorded in June 2021.
June 2022’s average diesel price of 192.4 pence per litre as published by the ONS was another record high.
Elsewhere, food costs are also rising at the quickest pace since March 2009.
While the AA has said this week that petrol prices are dropping with wholesale fuel costs beginning to fall, prices still remain far higher than they were prior to Russia’s military incursion on Ukraine.
The ONS has been quizzing businesses on how they have adapted to additional costs, with a third passing them onto consumers by raising prices and over half having chosen to absorb the costs themselves.
This comes as further ONS figures show that prices in restaurants and hospitality settings such as hotels have increased by 8.6 per cent in the year to June 2022.
Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi has said that the government is working in tandem with the Bank of England to temper inflation as countries around the world are left “battling higher prices”.
The Bank of England has been successively increasing interest rates at its Monetary Policy Committee [MPC] meetings of late in a bid to cool rising prices, with rates currently standing at 1.25 per cent.
This process began in December last year, then the Bank raised rates from 0.5 per cent to 0.25 per cent.
The MPC will meet again in August, with Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey suggesting that a further rise of 0.5 per cent could be implemented.
Photo by Sarah Agnew on Unsplash
