Inflation in Britain hits 9 percent, the fastest pace in four decades.

The Office for National Statistics said that Britain's annual inflation rate jumped to 9 percent last month, the highest in 40 years.

The Consumer Prices Index increased from March to April. The reset in the government's cap on household gas and electricity bills caused Britons to be braced for a steep rise in inflation in April. The price cap, which is designed to protect 22 million households, rose by 54 percent due to a surge in wholesale natural gas prices late last year.

Grant Fitzner, the chief economist at the statistics agency, said that about three-quarters of the increase in the annual rate of inflation in April came from the jump in household utility bills.

After the cut to V.A.T., a type of sales tax, expired, prices were pushed higher by increases at restaurants. Food prices increased at a faster rate than last year.

The pain of a high rate of inflation will be felt by people on low incomes as price increases outstrip wage growth and intensify pressure on the government to support them with the cost of living.

Inflation is not likely to have peaked. When the energy price cap is reset again in October, economists expect another steep increase in the price of energy. The Bank of England predicts that Britain's inflation rate will peak in the last quarter of the year.