A shopping trolley is pushed around a supermarket in London, Britain May 19, 2015. REUTERS/Stefan WermuthA shopping trolley is pushed around a supermarket in London, Britain May 19, 2015. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth
“Prices are still rising, but by less than this time last year with the most notable example of this being motor fuels,” said Grant Fitzner, chief economist at the Office for National Statistics. “We still think the Bank will increase rates by 50bps, from 3.00% to 3.50%, tomorrow,” Paul Dales, an economist at Capital Economics, said. “But another 75bps hike has just become less likely and it’s possible that rates don’t rise to the peak of 4.50% we are forecasting.”
Britain is in the middle of a wave of industrial action, especially in the public sector where pay has not kept up with the private sector or with rising prices.British inflation started to pick up last year, driven by post-pandemic bottlenecks in the domestic and global economy, and accelerated when European energy prices surged after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.