The largest downward contribution came from transport costs, notably motor fuels and air fares, while the upward pressure came from price movements for food and non-alcoholic beverages.
Samuel Tombs, UK Economist from Capital Economics, said: “The drop in CPI inflation from 2.8% in March to 2.4% exceeded the consensus, and our own, expectation of a fall to 2.6%.”
Tombs said the 1.8% monthly fall in petrol prices subtracted nearly 0.2 percentage points from CPI inflation while April’s duty increases, which were smaller than those seen a year ago, also knocked a further 0.1 percentage point off the headline rate.
The ONS confirmed that April was the first month which had seen growth in inflation slow since Autumn 2012.
But over the last six months the CPI 12-month rate had remained particularly stable.
CPIH, the new measure of consumer price inflation including owner occupiers’ housing costs, grew by 2.2% in the year to April 2013, down from 2.6% in March.
The slower growth in CPIH than CPI is due principally to owner occupiers’ housing costs increasing more slowly than overall inflation for other consumer goods and services in the year to April.
