Falling house prices partly blamed for unprecedented 1.2% fall in RPI during April

The UK economy slumped deeper into deflation in April, sliding to its lowest level in over 60 years.

Falling house prices combined with the escalation of mortgage repayments have been blamed for the slump.

Inflation on the Retail Price Index (RPI) measure, which includes housing costs, fell further to -1.2% in April, from -0.4% in March - the biggest fall since records began in 1948.

The figures were released on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics.

The decline in RPI inflation was bigger than economists had predicted, and follows the March figure, which showed the first negative reading since 1960.

The RPI is used by many companies as the starting point for wage bargaining.

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