Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for what reasons (a) his Department uses different indices to measure inflation and (b) benefit increases are pegged to the lower index.

The government currently makes use of both the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and the Retail Prices Index (RPI). We recognise that there are issues in the way that RPI is measured and, as set out at Autumn Budget 2018, the government’s objective is to reduce the use of RPI when and where practicable.