Living costs:

Economists hope for fall

Inflation is expected to have held steady in March as a drop in food and fuel prices was offset by higher airfares around the earlier Easter holidays.

A consensus of economists forecast the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Consumer Price Index (CPI) to come in at 2.7% for March, in line with February’s reading and holding below the 3% recorded in January.

Britons are believed to have benefited from slightly weaker food prices, which had surged on the back of the weaker pound, as well as a bigger month-onmonth drop in fuel prices than a year earlier.

But air fares are likely to have helped offset the drop, having risen during the Easter bank holiday, which fell earlier in the calendar this year.

Martin Beck, lead UK economist at Oxford Eco- nomics, said: “Although we think that 2018 as a whole will see a steady decline in price pressures, March may have proved an exception to that. For one, base effects which helped push down inflation in February, won’t be as favourable.

“Moreover, while average petrol prices at the pumps dropped 1.4% between February and March this year, that was only a touch bigger than the 0.8% drop seen between the same months in 2017.”

But some experts – including George Brown, economist at Investec – are expecting inflation to fall even further.

Mr Brown highlighted BRC Shop Price Index data, which showed food prices dropping at their fastest rate in 18 months in March.

“Overall though, the risks to inflation are skewed to the downside,” he said.

“We suspect that these factors will mean that we see another step-down in CPI inflation in March such that it falls to a one-year low of 2.5%.”

Slower growth from CPI could ease pressure on the Bank of England, which is widely expected to hike interest rates beyond 0.5% in May.

Two of the nine Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) members already voted to hike rates to 0.75% last month, marking the first split vote since last November when rates were raised from 0.25% to 0.5%.

Despite keeping rates on hold, the committee said that “ongoing tightening of monetary policy” would be needed to bring inflation back to the Bank’s 2% target.

“Overall though, the risks to inflation are skewed to the downside”

ECONOMY: Bank of England Governor Mark Carney is expected to up interest rates