UK consumer price growth unexpectedly accelerated in July

According to the report from Office for National Statistics, the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) 12-month rate was 1.0% in July 2020, up from 0.6% in June. Economists had expected a 0.6% increase. On a monthly basis, the consumer price index rose 0.4% after increasing 0.1% in June. Economists had expected a 0.1% decrease.

The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) 12-month inflation rate was 1.1% in July 2020, up from 0.8% in June 2020. The largest contribution to the CPIH 12-month inflation rate in July 2020 came from recreation and culture (0.33 percentage points). Clothing, rising prices at the petrol pump, and furniture and household goods made large upward contributions to the change in the CPIH 12-month inflation rate between June and July 2020.

Falling food prices resulted in a partially offsetting small downward contribution to the change.

As the restrictions caused by the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have been eased, the number of CPIH items that were unavailable to UK consumers in July has reduced to 12, as detailed in Table 58 of the Consumer price inflation dataset; these account for 1.3% of the CPIH basket by weight and made no overall contribution to the change in the CPIH 12-month rate; the number of unavailable items is down from 67 unavailable items for June, and 74 and 90 unavailable items for May and April, respectively; for July, we have collected a weighted total of 82.0% of comparable coverage collected previously (excluding unavailable items).