§ 50. Mr. McCrindleasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what proportion of inflation has been domestically generated on a month-by-month basis since January 1972.
§ Mr. NottIt would not be meaningful to try to apportion individual monthly changes in domestic prices to domestic and external factors. In particular, because lags are involved, changes in import prices in a specific month will not be wholly reflected in domestic prices in the same month. However, it is clear from the statistics that domestic causes of inflation were the most important between January 1972 and the standstill in November of that year, and that import prices have been the main factor since then. Between January and November 1972 retail prices rose 6.5 per cent. and import prices, which have a weight of roughly one-fifth in the total, by 7.7 per cent.; between November 1972 and September 1973 retail prices rose 7.4 per cent. and import prices 31.2 per cent.