High unemployment in most of Europe should contain the potential for wages to push higher, while indirect tax rises might hold down spending, he said. Thus, the data was not a “cause for alarm,” he said, and inflation should drop below 2 percent before midyear unless commodity prices rose markedly further or the euro declined significantly.

As such, the chances of a rate increase from the central bank before the end of this year still appear modest, he said.

British consumers are starting the year in a bleak mood, facing a higher tax on fuel, a rise in the value-added sales tax, or VAT, and cuts in government spending.

The increase in VAT, to 20 percent from 17.5 percent, took effect Tuesday and applies to most sales of consumer goods and services. It is a crucial measure in the Conservative-led coalition’s plan to reduce the ballooning budget deficit.

The chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, defended the increase. “Once we had decided that at least part of dealing with the deficit had to come from a tax rise, it struck us that VAT was the least damaging tax rise,” Mr. Osborne told the BBC on Tuesday. “The main alternatives would be a rise in income tax or a rise in national insurance,” he said, “and we thought that both of those would be far more economically damaging and therefore to be avoided.”

Separately, the government increased the tax on gasoline and diesel at the start of the year by 0.76 pence a liter, or 4 cents a gallon. Even before the increase in December, the cost of filling a typical 50-liter, or 13.2-gallon, gasoline tank had risen to £61.07, or $94.50, from £54.26 a year earlier, according to the national Automobile Association.