UK inflation accelerates to 11.1% in October

LONDON: British inflation accelerated in October to the highest level for more than 40 years, driven by soaring domestic energy bills in a worsening cost-of-living crisis, official data showed Wednesday.

The Consumer Prices Index hit 11.1 percent on an annual basis, up from 10.1 percent in September, the Office for National Statistics said in a statement on the eve of a key government budget.

Thursday’s government budget is unlikely to be uppermost in the minds of people enjoying the annual light show on the seafront promenade of Blackpool.

But for residents and businesses of the town, which is ranked as England’s most deprived, the expected spending cuts and tax increases could have wide-ranging consequences.

Finance minister Jeremy Hunt is under pressure to reduce inflation — which accelerated to 11.1 percent in October, a 41-year high — squeezing incomes also hit by rising energy prices.

The Trussell Trust charity, which runs more than 1,200 food banks across Britain, said the cost-of-living crisis is stretching emergency food relief centres to “breaking point”.

Last week it said that in the six months to September, 320,000 people have been forced to turn to food banks for the first time.

Nearly 1.3 million food parcels — more than half of them to children — were handed out in its network, a third more than in the same period last year.