School standards minister confuses interest rates and inflation in Sky News interview

Speaking about the cost of living on Sky News earlier today, school standards minister Catherine McKinnell MP claimed “we’ve seen inflation coming down”.

That’s not what the latest inflation figures show, however, and the Department for Education has since told us she’d intended to refer to interest rates.

While the Bank Rate—which is set by the Bank of England to influence the interest rates charged by banks—is currently one percentage point lower than it was when Labour came into government on 5 July 2024, inflation (as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI)) is higher than it was when Labour entered government.

In the 12 months to June 2024—the last full month of the previous Conservative government—inflation stood at 2%, while in the 12 months to July 2024—the month Labour formed a government—it was 2.2%. As of April 2025, annual CPI inflation was 3.5%, 0.9 percentage points higher than the previous month’s figure.

Other commonly used measures of inflation show similar trends.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen government ministers confuse interest rate and inflation figures. Earlier this year we fact checked the Prime Minister and Home Office minister Seema Malhotra MP after they both wrongly claimed interest rates had been at 11% under the previous government. As Ms Malhotra later made clear in an edited post, the 11% figure actually referred to the peak rate of CPI inflation in 2022.

If an MP makes a false or misleading claim on broadcast media they should take responsibility for ensuring it is appropriately corrected, and make efforts to ensure the correction is publicly available to anyone who might have heard the claim.