Inflation, at the same time, has declined. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose by just 1.2 per cent over the past year. This was the lowest result for some years, though it partly reflects the unwinding of the large rise in some food prices that occurred in the first half of 2011 and which had pushed up the CPI.
Using the various measures we have for underlying inflation, we would put it at about 2 per cent over the past year, which is still down a bit on the figure a year earlier.