Bank of England warns on prices. Core inflation often rose after such warnings.

A warning eight days before the number

Giving evidence to the Commons Treasury Committee on 8 September 2026, the governor of the Bank of England warned that war and weather threaten another burst of UK inflation, saying the risks are on the upside and that energy prices could rise further.

Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, told the Treasury Committee of MPs on 8 September that the risks to inflation point upwards. He said energy is the main risk, and that prices that are already high could go higher still.

Bailey also said the Bank is not following a fixed plan towards higher interest rates. He wanted to end the idea that it knew where it was going. The Financial Times summed up the session as a warning that war and weather threaten another burst of UK inflation.

The detailed figures do not yet show what he described. Prices rose 2.9 per cent in the year to July. But core inflation, which leaves out energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, stayed at 2.6 per cent in May, June and July. Food and soft drink inflation, the weather part of the warning, has fallen every month since March and was 1.3 per cent in July.

The test comes eight days after the warning. The ONS, the UK statistics office, publishes the August figures at 7am on 16 September. The next day the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee, which sets interest rates, announces its decision. Bank Rate is the Bank’s main interest rate.

On 30 July the Committee kept Bank Rate at 3.75 per cent by six votes to three, with the three wanting 4 per cent. It said prices were expected to rise later in the year as energy costs passed through.

Sources: Financial Times, Independent, ONS series DKO8 (2, 3), Bank of England

The Pattern

We found nine such warnings since January 2022. Each time the governor of the Bank of England said UK inflation would rise, or that the risks pointed up, at the press conference after a rate decision or in evidence to the Treasury Committee. For each one we checked the next official inflation figures. Did core inflation, which leaves out energy and food, go up? The last eight are shown here.

The Read

History says a governor’s warning often means something. After five of the last eight, core inflation rose in the next figures, and after six of all nine. But the market starts lower, at 45 per cent, because the three misses are the three most recent, all from this energy shock. Core has stayed at 2.6 per cent for three months, and the pressure Bailey described on 8 September is in energy, which core leaves out.

The case for a rise is that core is built to catch rises that spread from energy to other prices. At the same hearing, one of the Bank’s outside members argued that waiting for clear proof of this would mean waiting too long. A rise in core on 16 September would give the three members who wanted higher rates in July their argument the day before they vote.

The August figures decide it. If prices of services and goods do not follow energy upwards, the warning will not show in core. The question falls away if the ONS delays the release or the 17 September decision is moved earlier.