CPI sees 0.2% drop in August

On a monthly basis, CPI rose by 0.5% in August 2022 - also down 0.2% when compared to the 0.7% figure in August 2021. Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH), meanwhile, dropped from 8.8% to 8.6%. 

On a monthly basis, CPIH rose by 0.5% in August 2022, compared with a rise of 0.6% in the same month a year earlier.

A fall in the price of motor fuels made the largest downward contribution to the change in both the CPIH and CPI annual inflation rates between July and August 2022. Rising food prices made the largest - partially offsetting - upward contribution to the change in the rates. 

Looking at the sectoral inflation rates, transport dropped from 15.1% in July to 12.4% in August - with the annual rate rising from -1.6% in May 2020 to 15.2% in June, before easing the latest two months. 

Motor fuel price changes are the main driver behind the overall movements within transport, with fuel prices increasing by 32.1% in the year to August 2022. Average petrol and diesel prices stood at 175.2 and 186.6 pence per litre, compared with 134.6 and 137 pence a litre a year earlier. 

Elsewhere in the transport division, annual second-hand car prices rose by 4.6% - down four percent from the annual figures seen in July. This is the fifth consecutive month since March 2022 that this has eased, when it was at 31%. 

Although prices have fallen between March and August 2022, much of the change in the annual inflation rate is a base effect as prices rose by more than 18% between March and August 2021.