'I buy beans - price keeps going up!' Birmingham residents hit out at inflation 'means nothing'

The latest figures are the lowest level of inflation reported since September 2021 and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt hopes the drop can 'open the door' for the Bank of England to cut interest rates.

Speaking ahead of the Monetary Policy Committee meeting, the Chancellor suggested the Bank could 'consider bringing down' the rates for Britain.

Speaking to broadcasters following the announcement, Hunt praised the latest figures and said the Government's plan 'is working'.

Hunt told reporters: "As inflation gets closer to its target, that opens the door for the Bank of England to consider bringing down interest rates, that brings down mortgage rates, and that makes a very big difference."

He added: "It’s far too early to know whether we’ll have another fiscal event before the election, but what I would say is that what you can see is the difficult decisions the Government has taken over the last year are paying off and we can see that – difficult though they were – they were the right thing to do because inflation is now coming right down."

Reacting to the latest rates, residents of Birmingham shared their thoughts on inflation and the ongoing impact the cost of living crisis is having on them.

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One Birmingham resident said the drop "doesn't actually mean an awful lot" to their everyday costs, including mortgage payments.

When asked if things are 'getting easier' for him money wise, the resident told GB News: "No, not at all actually. Food prices are coming down, but Birmingham Council, over the next two years, their council rates are going to go up by 20 per cent, 10 per cent each year.

"So it doesn't matter about five per cent off here and there, it soon gets eaten up, this valuable money, by all the extra costs. Everything's a lot more expensive than what it was a few years ago, and it really is hard to keep up with it."

Another local defended the Conservatives and said the rates had 'nothing to do with Rishi', only the Bank. He said: "Rishi and the Tories are going to be riding this right all the way into the next election, which would probably be as late as possible into this year. And I don't think it's got anything to do with them whatsoever. It's just market forces that are at play.

"I think people are struggling. People feel objectively poorer. Um, and yeah, obviously it's great that it's come down a fraction of a percent, but what that practically means for the average man and woman is not a lot at the moment."

In contrast, another Birmingham resident criticised the government and the Bank of England for 'pulling these figures out' to 'try and impress us', but it means 'absolutely nothing' to the average Briton.

He explained: "As a normal person on the street, I'm going and buying my beans, and the prices just keep going up. So I think it's a bit of a red herring, it's just there for the government to kind of bolster themselves.

"It's been exponential, the costs have been rising without any levelling off on the horizon. And I think that's the real message. I think the prices aren't going to level off. And all this rhetoric we're being sold, it's just fluff."