UK economy grows faster than expected; prices drop as US mulls big oil reserve release – as it happened

• Joe Biden expected to announce release of up to 180m barrels from US strategic petroleum reserve to cool oil market
• Gas prices rise amid standoff over rouble payments
• Jets linked to Russian oligarchs appear to have kept flying despite sanctions
• Energy websites crash as customers rush to submit meter readings
• UK house prices rise at fastest rate for 17 years
• Eurozone unemployment rate falls to record low of 6.8%
• Closing summary
• Ukraine live updates

In Italy, inflation rose to an annual rate of 6.7% in March, according to a preliminary estimate from Istat, Italy's statistics office.

Here's a ranking of European inflation rates, based on the EU's harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) measure:

Inflation rose more than expected in France in March, reaching 4.5%. This is a figure that has not been seen since the 1980s, but it is still much lower than in neighbouring countries. Inflation will continue to rise in the coming months, before falling sharply.

For the next few months, we expect inflation to continue to rise, driven by energy and food prices, but also by inflationary pressures that are increasingly spreading to all sectors of the economy. The 5% mark for the national inflation indicator could be exceeded in the second quarter, even without further increases in energy prices. Indeed, all business indicators suggest that companies expect to set higher prices in the coming months.