UK inflation rises to 3.5% in April; clothing prices drag

On a monthly basis, it rose by 1.2 per cent in April compared with a month on month (MoM) rise of 0.3 per cent in April 2024.

The largest upward contributions to the monthly change in CPI annual rates came from housing and household services, transport and recreation and culture; the largest, partially offsetting, downward contribution came from clothing and footwear, an ONS release said.

Clothing and footwear prices fell by 0.4 per cent YoY in April, compared with a YoY rise of 1.1 per cent in March. On a monthly basis, such prices fell by 1.1 per cent in April, compared with a MoM rise of 0.4 per cent a year ago.

The largest downward effects came from garments for women, garments for infants and footwear for women. In some of the categories that saw the largest downward effects the percentage of items that were on sale were much higher than usual.

Core CPI (excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco) rose by 3.8 per cent YoY in April—up from a rise of 3.4 per cent YoY in March. The CPI goods annual rate rose from 0.6 per cent to 1.7 per cent.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)