Shop prices rose at their fastest rate in six years despite heavy discounting by fashion retailers on the high street before Christmas.
The latest monthly figures from the British Retail Consortium and Nielsen show that overall shop price inflation rose from 0.1% in November to 0.3% last month.
This was a result of non-food deflation easing to -0.4% last month from -0.8% in November. This more than offset a fall in food inflation to 1.5% from 1.6% over the period.
