{"id":250856,"date":"2026-01-22T01:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/250856\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T01:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T01:13:14","slug":"uk-inflation-inches-up-in-december-but-a-decline-toward-2-is-expected-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/250856\/","title":{"rendered":"UK inflation inches up in December but a decline toward 2% is expected in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Inflation<\/a> in the United Kingdom rose in December for the first time in five months, pushing further above the Bank of England’s target<\/a>, according to official figures released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Office for National Statistics said the consumer prices index rose by an annual rate of 3.4% in December, up from 3.2% the month before. It said increases in taxes on tobacco products and trips abroad over Christmas contributed to the increase.<\/p>\n

The increase was slightly lower than anticipated, with most economists predicting a rise to 3.5%. They predicted that December’s rise will be a temporary blip on a downward path toward the Bank of England’s target rate of 2%.<\/p>\n

James Smith, research director at the Resolution Foundation economic think tank, said that \u201cbig falls are due in 2026, with inflation finally returning to back to more normal levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

With inflation trending downwards, economists expect the Bank of England to further cut its main interest rate from the current rate of 3.75%.<\/p>\n

Britain’s Labour government hopes that taming inflation and the associated reduction in borrowing costs will help bolster economic growth.<\/p>\n

Elected in a landslide victory just 18 months ago, Labour has since seen its poll ratings tank badly<\/a>, partly because an uptick in growth \u2014 its number one priority in the election \u2014 has remained largely elusive.<\/p>\n

Treasury chief Rachel Reeves pledged after the release of the inflation data that 2026 would be the \u201cyear that Britain turns a corner.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Inflation in the United Kingdom rose in December for the first time in five months,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":250857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[14708,114,133788,184,85,46,133787,19146,133789],"class_list":["post-250856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-bank-of-england","tag-business","tag-consumer-prices-index","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-james-smith","tag-office-for-national-statistics","tag-target-rate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=250856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/250856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/250857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=250856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=250856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=250856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}