FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3344
You asked
I wanted to ask whether the ONS is considering to impute any prices in case of new restrictions due to the new COVID-19 strain.
I would expect airfares and foreign holidays might have to be imputed should the list of restrictions broaden outside the current countries in Africa. Would you be able to advise what is the threshold to again start imputing these indices?
We said
Thank you for your request.
There's no hard and fast rule for when we might resume imputation of these items, which just reflects the uncertainty around the evolution of these types of policies. We tend to look at the Gov.uk advice and whether there's a change in the wording or legality that might suggest a tightening (or otherwise) of restrictions. We'll also look at the number and importance of countries on the travel lists, as well as media coverage to make a judgement in the round.
More generally, it's hard to know which - if any - items might require an unavailable imputation in the near future... it will depend entirely on what policies the Government may choose to put in place. Historically, it's tended to be some of the cultural services items that have stayed on the unavailable item list for longest. Table 58 of the CPI bulletin show the history of how items have moved on the unavailable list.
In this regard, I guess a good month to look at might be the newly unavailable items for last January, which is when we went into the last lockdown (although of course things are different now with the vaccine roll out, etc). It's mostly the cultural services I referenced as well as many of the hospitality items, travel and some extras.