RETAILERS will be keen to capitalise on the boost to Scottish households' spending power provided by the fastest year-on-year fall in UK shop prices on record, a senior sector figure has declared.

David Lonsdale, director of the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC), highlighted this "opportunity" on the basis of new industry figures showing UK shop prices in March were down by 2.1 per cent on the same month of last year.

This annual rate of decline in shop prices last month, unveiled in figures published today by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and market researcher Nielsen, is the steepest since comparable records began in December 2006.

And it marks a significant acceleration of shop-price deflation from an annual rate of 1.7 per cent in February.

The BRC-Nielsen figures show UK food prices in March were down 0.9 per cent on the same month of last year. In February, food prices had been down by 0.4 per cent on a year earlier.

Annual non-food price deflation accelerated to 2.8 per cent in March, from 2.5 per cent in February, the figures show.

Mr Lonsdale said: "Scottish households are benefiting from falling shop prices and a corresponding increase in their spending power, and retailers will be keen to capitalise on this opportunity."

Noting that the year-on-year fall in food prices in March was also the steepest on record, Mr Lonsdale added: "The fact that food price inflation is at a record low will be especially welcome to lo- income households who typically spend proportionally more of their family budget on groceries."

Figures published in March by the SRC showed the value of retail sales in Scotland in February was down 1.4 per cent on the same month of last year.

The BRC said last month that the value of retail sales in the UK as a whole in February was up by 1.7 per cent on a year earlier.