TORY ministers are “utterly failing to bring down inflation with no end in sight to the cost-of-living nightmare,” the labour movement warned today as new figures showed food prices are rising at their fastest rate for nearly half a century.

A doubling in olive oil costs and significant increases in milk and ready meal prices saw food inflation hit an eye-watering 19.1 per cent last month — the sharpest year-on-year rise for a single month since August 1977 —  the Office for National Statistics announced.

The consumer prices index inflation rate fell back to its January level of 10.1 per cent after a shock 0.3 per cent increase in February, but it remains stubbornly high, with most economists expecting the figure to have already dropped below 10 per cent.

The reduced rate does not mean that prices are falling, just that they are growing at a slightly slower rate, bringing no respite to households across the country facing rising energy bills and plummeting take-home wages.

Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has justified his calls for further below-inflation public-sector pay rises by pledging to half the rate of inflation by the end of this year, but the TUC warned today that food prices are rising nearly three times faster than wages.

The crippling disparity — 2.7 times faster — will hit the lowest earners the hardest as they spend a greater proportion of their income on the basics, it stressed.

General secretary Paul Nowak said: “Make no mistake — Britain’s cost-of-living nightmare is far from over.

“Food and energy bills are hammering household budgets, especially for those on lower incomes.

“Unless we bring prices under control and get pay rising in every corner of the country, families will keep lurching from crisis to crisis.

“That means fair pay for all public servants and getting the minimum wage to £15 per an hour as soon as possible.”

Britain has one of the highest inflation rates in the “developed” world, with Italy recording 8.2 per cent, Germany 7.8 per cent, France 6.6 per cent and the US 5.3 per cent.

The war in Ukraine and climate change-hit harvests are disrupting supply chains across the continent, but unions note a greater impact in Britain following the failure of ministers to address the nation’s reliance on imported gas and food, mounting labour shortages and “rampant corporate profiteering.”

Mr Nowak accused the PM of “dragging his heels on meaningful negotiations to resolve pay disputes” across the NHS, schools, the Civil Service and elsewhere while “going easy on the oil and gas giants treating families like cash machines.

“Sunak has his priorities wrong — his government should reward work, not wealth,” he added. “We need negotiations to settle the current disputes and a plan to get wages rising.”

Unite head Sharon Graham said the latest inflation figures “change nothing for workers.

“The public are beginning to cotton on that it’s not wage rises driving prices, it’s rampant corporate profiteering — there’ll be no end in sight to the crisis until we tackle that scourge.

“While politicians and policy-makers snooze at the wheel, Unite’s ongoing fight to win better jobs, pay and conditions continues.”

The “reality is that under the Tories our economy is weaker, prices are out of control and never have people paid so much to get so little in return,” Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves charged.

And SNP economy spokesman Stewart Hosie accused Downing Steet of “utterly failing” to address inflation, arguing: “The only way Scotland can escape the economic incompetence of Westminster is by becoming an independent country and rejoining the European Union.”