LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s government will delay until August a consultation to decide when it should fix a flawed measure of inflation, the retail price index, finance minister Rishi Sunak said in a letter published on Thursday.
“The consultation will now close for responses on 21 August – subject to coronavirus-related developments,” Sunak said.
More than a quarter of British government bonds, worth around 450 billion pounds ($559.94 billion), are linked to the Retail Prices Index which runs higher than other measures of inflation, meaning investors receive an estimated windfall of 1 billion pounds a year.
(Reporting by Andy Bruce; editing by William James)
