{"id":637235,"date":"2026-10-21T10:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T10:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/637235\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T10:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T10:10:18","slug":"inflation-and-government-borrowing-hit-highest-level-for-a-year-ahead-of-next-weeks-budget-follow-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/637235\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflation and government borrowing hit highest level for a year ahead of next week’s Budget – follow live"},"content":{"rendered":"

Increasing fuel prices push UK inflation rate to 3.5% ahead of Budgetpublished at 10:31 BST<\/p>\n

10:31 BST<\/p>\n

\"AImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n

The UK inflation rate was 3.5% in the year to September, driven by soaring petrol and diesel prices.<\/p>\n

This latest 3.5% figure was slightly higher than economists expected, and marks the third successive increase in inflation rate. <\/p>\n

Office for National Statistics (ONS) chief economist Grant Fitzner said<\/a> fuel prices were the main driver, with diesel at its highest price since July 2022, but that the rising price of airfares, computer games and live events also contributed. <\/p>\n

“The annual cost of both raw materials and goods leaving factories continued to rise, driven by higher crude oil and petrol prices, respectively,” Fitzner added.<\/p>\n

As well as prices rising faster than expected in the year to September, the UK government also borrowed more than it had anticipated.<\/p>\n

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor John Healey says “conflicts in the Middle East and Europe” were to blame for rising prices<\/a>, adding that his Budget next week will give families and businesses “breathing space”. <\/p>\n

While Conservative the shadow chancellor says the figures show Labour has “lost control”<\/a> of the economy and must take “urgent action” to tackle the deficit in the upcoming budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Increasing fuel prices push UK inflation rate to 3.5% ahead of Budgetpublished at 10:31 BST 10:31 BST Image…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-637235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}