British inflation leapt last month to its highest annual rate since 1982, piling pressure on finance minister Rishi Sunak to step up help for households facing a worsening cost-of-living crisis.
Consumer price inflation hit 9% in April, the Office for National Statistics said, surpassing even the peaks of the early 1990s recession that many Britons remember for sky-high interest rates and widespread mortgage defaults.
A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a reading of 9.1%.
Sterling fell after the data and was down by 0.4% against the U.S. dollar.
Soaring energy bills were the biggest driver of price growth in April, reflecting last month’s increase in regulated energy tariffs.
