Spotlight on Bank of England as UK inflation hits 2.9%

British inflation hit its joint highest level in more than five years in August, complicating the Bank of England’s job this week of explaining why it is not raising interest rates.

The fall in the value of the pound since last year’s vote to leave the EU helped drive the biggest rise in clothing prices since the consumer price index was launched in 1997 and rising global oil costs also had an impact.

Consumer prices overall increased by 2.9% compared with a year earlier, the UK Office for National Statistics said, up from 2.6% in July.