Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of the Growth Plan 2022 on the rate of inflation.

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility is the government’s official forecaster and will publish its next forecast on the economy, including for inflation, on the 17th November. In addition, the Bank of England published its inflation forecast in their November Monetary Policy Report.

Inflation has been pushed up by global factors, and more recently a tight labour market, with high inflation becoming more broad-based.

The Government has the tools and resolve to reduce inflation – through independent monetary policy, fiscal responsibility, and supply side activism.

Further, the Government has announced a significant package of support to reduce the pressure from rising energy prices on households and businesses across the UK. The Energy Price Guarantee (EPG) will cap the unit price that consumers pay for electricity and gas, while the government Energy Bill Relief Scheme will provide a discount on wholesale gas and electricity prices for all non-domestic customers.

Following the introduction of the EPG, independent forecasters revised down their expected peak in inflation by around 5 percentage points. In their November Monetary Policy Report, the Bank of England stated that the EPG is likely to ‘limit significantly’ further increases in CPI inflation.