UK consumer price index rose in line with forecasts in May

According to the report from Office for National Statistics, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) 12-month rate was 0.5% in May 2020, down from 0.8% in April.

The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) 12-month inflation rate was 0.7% in May 2020, down from 0.9% in April 2020.

The largest contribution to the CPIH 12-month inflation rate in May 2020 came from recreation and culture (0.23 percentage points).

Falling prices for motor fuels and a variety of recreational and cultural goods resulted in the largest downward contributions to the change in the CPIH 12-month inflation rate between April and May 2020.

Rising prices for food and non-alcoholic drinks resulted in a partially offsetting upward contribution to change.

As a result of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, we identified 74 CPIH items (or 14.2% of the CPIH basket by weight) that were unavailable to UK consumers in May, as detailed in table 58 of the Consumer price inflation dataset; this is down from 90 unavailable items in April; compared with the February 2020 index (the most recent “normal” collection), we have collected a weighted total of 81.6% (excluding unavailable items) of the number of price quotes for the May 2020 index, although the coverage varies across the range of items.