Prices are rising at their fastest rate for 40 years as higher energy bills hit millions of households.
UK inflation, the rate at which prices are rising, jumped to 9% in the 12 months to April, up from 7% in March, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The surge came as millions of people saw an unprecedented £700-a-year rise in energy costs last month.
The BBC reports that higher fuel and food prices, driven by the Ukraine war, are also pushing the cost of living up, with inflation expected to continue to rise this year.
Around three quarters of the rise in inflation in April came from higher electricity and gas bills.
A higher energy price cap - which is the maximum price per unit that suppliers can charge customers - kicked in last month, meaning homes using a typical amount of gas and electricity are now paying £1,971 per year on average.
The ONS, which publishes the UK's inflation rate, said the price of food, transport and machinery also drove prices higher.
"All items" on the menus of restaurants and cafes had increased, the UK statistics body said, which it said was due to the VAT rate for hospitality returning to 20% in April, after being cut to 12.5% to aid businesses recovering for the coronavirus pandemic.
Inflation is the rate at which prices are rising. For example, if a bottle of milk costs £1 and that rises by 5p, then milk inflation is 5%.
With surging prices putting households under increasing pressure, calls for the government to do more to help those struggling are growing.
Anger over fuel duty
The figures come amid UK Government concerns that petrol retailers are not passing on the recent cut in fuel duty, after diesel prices hit another record high.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told petrol bosses the competition regulator is monitoring the situation.
However, petrol retailers said their costs had remained high.
The Petrol Retailers Association said margins were "often not enough to cover operating costs".
Chancellor Rishi Sunak implemented the 5p per litre cut in fuel duty in March to reduce the price of fuel for motorists.
In a letter to the industry, the business secretary stated that the public were "rightly expressing concern about the pace of the increase in prices at the forecourt".
He said people were frustrated that the fuel-duty cut "does not appear to have been passed through to forecourt prices in any visible or meaningful way".
"It is also unacceptable that different locations, even within the same retail chain, have widely-different prices," he wrote.
Mr Kwarteng said his officials recently engaged the Competition and Markets Authority about the issue, as a result of "perceived intransigence to date".
"I have been reassured that they will not hesitate to use their powers to act against petrol stations if there is evidence that they are infringing competition or consumer law," he said.
UK diesel prices rose to a record of just over £1.80 a litre on Monday, the RAC said.