{"id":682603,"date":"2026-05-20T08:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/682603\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T08:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:37:15","slug":"fall-in-energy-bills-drives-drop-in-uk-inflation-rate-to-2-8-live-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/682603\/","title":{"rendered":"Fall in energy bills drives drop in UK inflation rate to 2.8% &#8211; live updates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/core\/website\/assets\/static\/news\/incident-types\/light-mode\/analysis.77b314ef10.svg\" alt=\"Analysis\" height=\"2.5rem\" width=\"9.8125rem\" draggable=\"false\" class=\"ssrcss-h608ny-ContributorImageComponent e2hr5uu0\"\/>There is nothing that is going to stop the coming Iran shockpublished at 09:15 BST<\/p>\n<p>09:15 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-qs9kpv-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/7bbc638d-c11c-479b-90b5-cdbf75037c87.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Faisal Islam<br \/>Economics editor<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Absent the Iran War impact, this is a good set of figures showing that the rate of inflation had been heading for target.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">While the headline rate of inflation eased more than expected to 2.8%, underlying measures of price pressures, core inflation (2.5%) and service inflation (3.2%) fell abruptly in April to the lowest levels since before the Ukraine war started. Part of this is a specific strategy by the government to manage away the regular rise in regulated prices seen every April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">This is what the Bank of England watches carefully as a measure of the stickiness of inflation. Absent the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz there is every chance there would have been further interest rate cuts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">To be clear there is nothing that is going to stop the coming Iran shock seeing inflation rise, especially after July\u2019s increase in domestic energy bills. This is most clearly seen in the pipeline of inflation, with a 75% increase for crude oil inputs. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government has gone into overdrive on cost of living measures, with changes to Russian sanctions, judicial review on energy projects, possible changes to fuel duty and controversial talks on price freezes with supermarkets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The underlying picture before the Iran War still matters, and offer hope that if the Iran war shock ends, that inflation is now less sticky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is nothing that is going to stop the coming Iran shockpublished at 09:15 BST 09:15 BST Faisal&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-682603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}