§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the impact of increases in(a) petrol duty, (b) milk and (c) mortgage interest payments on the retail prices index.
§ Mr. NelsonThe increases in petrol duty will contribute an increase of around 0.16 percentage points in December 1994, and a further increase of around 0.06 185W percentage points in January 1995, to the change in the all-items retail prices index.
The milk index rose by 3.6 per cent. in November, contributing around 0.04 percentage points to the change in the all-items RPI.
So far, few mortgage lenders have passed the recent 0.5 per cent. increase in base rates on to their borrowers and so the impact on the all items RPI has been negligible.
§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the effect of each 0.5 per cent. increase in mortgage interest rates on the retail prices index.
§ Mr. NelsonAn increase in mortgage interest rates of 0.5 percentage points would have the effect of adding around 0.31 percentage points to the change in the all-items RPI.
§ Mr. Austin MitchellTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will show in rank order the percentage change in price since August 1992 of each of the non-food sub-group items of the retail prices index.
§ Mr. NelsonThe percentage change in price of each of non-food sub-group items of the retail prices index since August 1992 are shown in rank order in the table.
RPI Sub-group Items Percentage Change Tobacco 15.1 Catering 10.6 Leisure Service 9.4 Personal Goods and Services 7.8 Fares and Other Travel Costs 7.7 Alcoholic Drinks 6.6 Motoring Costs 6.5 Clothing and Footwear 6.3 Fuel and Light 4.7 Household Goods 3.4 Household Services 2.2 Leisure Goods 0.2 Housing -1.0