The 0.5 per cent rise in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to three per cent is the biggest monthly jump since July 2002 and follows surging gas and electricity bills, food prices, and Budget tax hikes on alcohol and tobacco.

The gloomy figure - far higher than the 2.6 per cent expected by City economists - brings the Bank of England's Governor Mervyn King to the brink of writing a second open letter to the Chancellor to explain the rise in inflation.

The Bank is charged with keeping inflation within a one per cent range of its two per cent target but Mr King must write a letter if CPI hits 3.1 per cent, as it did in March 2007.

Rate-setters on the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) had access to today's data during their deliberations last week, explaining their decision to leave borrowing costs unchanged at five per cent.

But the sudden spike in inflation lessens the prospects of further rate cuts to ease the pressure on homeowners and borrowers.

Today's Office for National Statistics (ONS) data showed soaring gas and electricity bills adding nearly 0.2 per cent to CPI after a swathe of price hikes from the UK's "big six" power companies earlier this year.

This had a bigger effect on the inflation figures in April as it compares with falling bills last year. And British Gas parent Centrica yesterday hinted at more price increases to come.

Seven of the 12 categories of goods measured by the CPI showed price increases on the previous month, including alcohol and tobacco after Chancellor Alistair Darling's Budget tax-grabs.

There was also pain at the supermarket with big rises in bread, cereals, meat and fish adding more than 0.1 per cent to the CPI, while mortgage arrangement fees were on the rise this year compared with falls seen 12 months earlier.

Motorists, meanwhile, are suffering at the petrol pump from oil prices above 120 dollars a barrel, but petrol actually had a deflationary effect in today's figures because prices rose at a quicker rate a year ago.