LONDON — Rishi Sunak now has at least one promise he can tell voters has been delivered: halving inflation.
Figures released Wednesday morning by the Office for National Statistics show that the rate of price growth in the U.K., as measured by the Consumer Prices Index, fell to 4.6 percent in the year to October.
That’s down from 6.7 percent in September. More significant politically, it meets the embattled U.K. prime minister’s goal set at the start of 2023 — when the CPI inflation rate topped 10 percent — of “halving inflation.”
It’s one of the five big pledges he’s asked voters to hold him accountable for in the run-up to a tough election next year.
Hitting the target — even as economists question just how much impact the government itself has had on prices — is a boost for Sunak, who has struggled to close the large polling lead the opposition Labour Party has over his governing Conservative Party.
In a statement issued just as the figures dropped, Sunak was swift to claim credit, saying getting inflation down had “involved hard decisions and fiscal discipline.”
Sunak said: “Official figures released this morning confirm we have halved inflation meeting the first of the five priorities I set out at the beginning of this year.
“But while it is welcome news that prices are no longer rising as quickly, we know many people are continuing to struggle, which is why we must stay the course to continue to get inflation all the way back down to 2 percent.” That “2 percent” is a reference to the Bank of England’s key inflation target.
However, the figures suggest the drop in inflation was less due to the efforts of Sunak’s government than it was to the huge increase in household energy bills last October now passing out of the calculations.
While base effects were the largest factor behind the drop in headline CPI from 6.7 percent in September, there was real progress, too, in highly politically sensitive areas such as food, where increased competition has helped stabilize prices in recent months.
Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the fall in inflation “will come as some relief for families struggling with the cost of living.”
“But now is not the time for Conservative ministers to be popping champagne corks and patting themselves on the back,” she warned, blasting what she called “13 years of economic failure under the Conservatives” that had left people with “higher mortgage bills, prices still rising in the shops and inflation twice as high as the Bank of England’s target.”
Five pledges
Both Sunak and his Chancellor Jeremy Hunt made lowering the rate a major priority, after inflation soared to levels not seen for four decades in 2022, as energy prices shot up following the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Sunak — who carried out a major reset of his government this week by reshuffling his cabinet — has otherwise struggled to make much progress towards his five pledges.
Alongside halving inflation, the PM vowed to “grow the economy”; make sure Britain’s national debt is falling, cut NHS waiting lists and “stop the boats.”
While Britain’s economy is getting slightly bigger according to the latest figures, U.K. government debt remains high by historical standards. Debt forecasts will be published alongside Hunt’s autumn statement — setting out tax-and-spend plans — next week.
NHS waiting lists have also continued to grow, rather than shrink, while crossings of the English Channel by migrants in small boats have continued in large numbers this year, albeit at a lower level than in 2022.
