Inflation rises to 4.4% in July

16 August 2011 | By Natalie Thomas

The Retail Prices Index measure remains unchanged at 5%.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King will now have to write another letter to the chancellor to explain why CPI inflation remains well above the 2% target rate.

There was not one component that drove the increase in CPI annual inflation between June and July.

Instead, upward pressures came from a number of different areas, the largest being miscellaneous goods and services where the upward pressure came from a wide variety of goods and services but by far the largest contribution came from financial services where, overall, fees rose this year but fell a year ago, particularly for arranging mortgages.

In clothing and footwear prices overall, fell between June and July due to the summer sales season.

The most notable upward effects came from furniture and furnishings where the largest effect was due to increases in housing rent, particularly for social housing provided by registered social landlords.

The only large downward pressure to the change in CPI annual inflation between June and July came from food and non-alcoholic beverages where prices, overall, rose by 0.3%between June and July this year compared with a rise of 1.0% a year ago.

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