West News Wire: When the government publishes new tax and spending plans on Thursday, there will be more pressure on it to do more to help the country’s cost-of-living crisis as the country’s inflation rate hit a 41-year high in October.
According to the Office for National Statistics, consumer prices increased 11.1% over the past 12 months through October, compared to a 10.1% increase in September. The October number was higher than the 10.7% forecast by economists.
According to the ONS, higher food and energy costs caused October’s inflation rate to reach its highest level since October 1981.
The new information is released a day before Treasury Secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected to present a new budget, and it comes as more people are calling for increased pay, benefits, and expenditure on health and education as galloping inflation reduces peoples’ purchasing power.
Those demands are complicating Hunt’s efforts to close an estimated 50 billion-pound budget shortfall and restore the government’s financial credibility after former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s disastrous economic policies undermined investor confidence and sparked turmoil on financial markets.
