A Tory minister has clashed with Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips over the UK’s high rate of inflation.
John Glen, the chief secretary to the Treasury, was grilled on what exactly the government is doing to slow down the rise in prices.
Figures out last week showed that inflation in the UK was at 8.7% in May, the same as the month before and more than four times the target of 2%.
That led to the Bank of England hiking interest rates for the 13th consecutive month to 5%, heaping more misery on mortgage holders.
Rishi Sunak has vowed to bring inflation down to around 5% by the end of the year, but experts believe he is on course to break that promise.
On Sky News this morning, Glen was presented with a graphic which showed how inflation in America and the Eurozone is far lower than in this country.
Phillips told him: “The American inflation is down a bit, the Eurozone inflation is down a bit, ours is stuck at 8.7%.
″Give me one thing that you in the Treasury are doing to tackle this inflation.”
Glen replied: “As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, my responsibility primary is to control public spending and that is an incredibly challenging job.
“These inflationary pressures bear down on all our public expenditure - on capital spending and day-to-day expenditure.”
Phillips hit back: “All very sensible, but explain to me how any of that has any bearing on that 8.7% figure in the next few months, which is when it’s hurting.”
The minister said: “Well I can understand, and I have constituents who email me with concerns about the high interest rates for their household budgets, but there isn’t a single lever that I can give you a quick soundbite on this morning.”
Phillips responded: “I’m just asking you for one contribution.”
But a clearly-irritated Glen said: “By putting one screenshot on your screen you fail to show the fact that interest rate pressures across Europe and across many of our allies - Australia, Canada, US interest rates have gone up at the fastest rate since the 1980s. This is a common experience.
“Now you’re rightly asking me what’s happening in the UK and I’m telling you that, but what I’m also telling you is there’s not one single thing I can do sat in Whitehall that’s going to resolve this in one month.”
Phillips replied: “Fair enough, but I did make the point that the problem for us is that ours is stuck, whereas others are going down.”