Raw material costs for British manufacturers rose at the fastest rate in two years in September, boosted by record oil and food prices.

The figures suggest that inflationary pressures remain in the economy, analysts said, and sharply lower the possibility of an interest rate cut in the short term.

The Office for National Statistics said that input prices rose 3.2 per cent last month. The rate was twice that forecast by economists.

The jump took the annual rate of input price inflation up to 6.4 per cent, from 0.7 per cent in August.

Richard Snook, of the Centre for Economic Research and Business Research, said: “The data shows that inflation cannot be discounted, despite the weakening economy.

"The rising price of oil and food has pushed input prices to the highest since August 2006, the height of last year's commodity price boom.”

Output prices rose by 2.7 per cent year-on-year last month, the fastest pace since March.

George Buckley, of Deutsche Bank, said: “Generally these figures are a touch stronger than expected and there is nothing here that suggests the Bank of England will cut rates in November.”

It had been widely thought that UK interest rates had hit a peak at 5.75 per cent and would be cut in the wake of the turmoil that has hit the markets in recent months.

The biggest force behind the surge in inflation was an 8.1 per cent monthly rise in the cost of crude oil.

Meanwhile, record wheat prices lifted prices of home-produced food materials by 3.1 per cent.

Separately, the UK index of production in August shows that the manufacturing sector continued to grow despite a strong pound.

Output of the productive industries in the three months to August rose by 0.4 per cent compared with the previous three-month period.

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