It is heavily caveated and higher than expectations in the City, but at last there is some relief for households: inflation has fallen. April’s CPI headline rate of 8.7 per cent represents the first sub-10 per cent figure for eight months, sparking hopes that the worst of the cost-of-living crisis may be behind us.
Much of the drop can be attributed to the fact that last spring’s energy price rises have fallen out of the annualised figures. And with fuel costs expected to keep falling, this should generate lower inflation as the year goes on — welcome news for the Prime Minister, who has made halving inflation one of his five key pledges.
