Peter Dowd MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, responding to today’s inflation figures, said:

“The continued rise in inflation will come as further bad news for working families; who after 7 years of Tory economic failure have seen their wages fail to keep up with prices.

“During a week in which we have so far seen the Government send mixed messages on their public sector pay freeze, and their chaotic handling of Brexit, they still have no answers to the squeeze on incomes that working households are facing; yet Philip Hammond still plans to handout over £70 billion in tax giveaways to big business and the super-rich over the next five years.

“Only a Labour government will protect the living standards of working people by bringing in a Real Living Wage of £10 per hour, and an immediate end to austerity spending cuts.“