Category Archives: UK cost of living crisis

UK shop prices fall year on year for first time since cost of living crisis began

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Prices down 0.3% in first week of August as food inflation eases and retailers attempt to shift unsold summer stock

UK shop prices have dropped for the first time since the cost of living crisis began nearly three years ago, as food inflation eased and retailers offered discounts on clothes and household goods to shift unsold summer stock.

New data showed prices were down 0.3% in the first week of August, compared with the same period last year. That compares to a 0.2% rise in July, and the three-month average of 0%.

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Average annual energy bill to rise by 9.5% to £1,717 in Great Britain from October

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Campaigners fear increase by £149 in energy price cap by Ofgem will put more pressure on households

Households will begin the run-up to winter with a sharp increase in their energy bills after the industry regulator increased its cap on energy prices by 9.5% from October.

Under the new price cap, the average annual energy bill will rise to £1,717 a year for gas and electricity, up £149 from its current level of £1,568, which has been in place since July.

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Wealth taxes could raise £10bn to help plug Tory budget hole, say economists

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Reforms to inheritance and capital gains taxes could reduce £20bn shortfall and combat UK’s widening wealth gap

Rachel Reeves could quickly find around £10bn a year to plug half of the fiscal hole left by the Conservatives if she were to raise taxes on soaring levels of unearned wealth, according to leading economists.

New research by the independent Resolution Foundation published today finds that Britain is a country of “booming wealth” but “busted wealth taxes”, leaving ample potential for the chancellor of the exchequer to raise desperately needed funds by raising taxes on the richest.

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Greens to push Labour to ‘be braver’ on climate, sewage and cost of living

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Party co-leader and new MP Carla Denyer says election shows voters ‘have had enough of incremental change’

The Green party will push the incoming Labour government to “be braver” on key issues, from the climate crisis and sewage in rivers to housing and tax, according to Carla Denyer, the party’s co-leader and one of its four new MPs.

The party quadrupled its number of MPs, beating Labour in Bristol Central and Brighton Pavilion and the Conservatives in Waveney Valley and North Herefordshire.

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Unpaid UK carers ‘face financial hit that can last decades’

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Loss of income, curbs on benefits and soaring bills are piling pressure on people caring for family members

People who look after family members free of charge are taking a huge hit to their finances which could continue into their retirement as they find themselves unable to balance paid work with their caring commitments.

Recent analysis of official figures by the financial firm Just Retirement found seven in 10 people who were receiving carer’s allowance were not in paid work, and missing out on earnings and private pension contributions.

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Rough sleeping in London hits highest level in a decade

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Almost 12,000 rough sleepers were seen by outreach workers in 2023-24, a 19% increase on the previous year

Rough sleeping in the capital has hit the highest level in a decade, with more than 1,100 people living on London’s streets for the first time because of evictions.

The number of new rough sleepers seen for the first time by outreach workers between April 2023 and March 2024, surged 25% to 7,974 people – the highest in at least four years. Almost one in 10 people living on the streets was aged 25 or under – including 13 children.

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More than half of UK students working long hours in paid jobs

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Lack of maintenance support is creating two-tier higher education system, say experts

More than half of full-time students are working long hours in jobs to support themselves at university, spending nearly two days a week in paid employment during term time, owing to the cost of living crisis.

A survey of 10,000 full-time UK undergraduates by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi) found a record 56% had paid employment while they were studying, working an average of 14.5 hours each week.

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Eight in 10 primary teachers in England spending own money to help pupils

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Increasing numbers of children hungry and lack adequate clothing, with two-thirds of secondary teachers also supporting pupils

Eight in 10 primary schoolteachers in England are spending their own money to buy items for pupils who are increasingly arriving at school hungry and without adequate clothing, according to new research.

Almost a third (31%) of those who took part in the survey said they were seeing more hungry children in class, with 40% reporting an increase in pupils coming in without proper uniform or a warm winter coat, research by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found.

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‘Bloody £9 for two’: TikTok twins rage at ice-cream van prices

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Eight-year-olds’ video, which racked up 14m views, hits a sore point for mobilers who have struggled with the cost of living

Like the totemic £8 pint or £5 coffee, the cost of a Mr Whippy ice-cream has become a barometer of a world gone mad. But really, nine quid for two ice-creams? Bloody hell.

That was the damning verdict of an eight-year-old whose TikTok rant over the cost of two screwballs from an ice cream van in the park has racked up 14m views at the time of writing.

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Littler India: why Britain’s south Asian garment stores are struggling

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They have been resilient amid wider high street decline – but units are now emptying in areas such as Southall, west London

The south Asian high street is facing a fight for its future in Britain as customers scale back wedding celebrations because of the cost of living crisis and young people’s changing preferences.

Businesses in London and Manchester have said they have witnessed a huge decline in customers after the pandemic with the cost of living crisis prompting many to decide against the traditional big south Asian wedding and to seek out cheaper products online.

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‘It’s catastrophic’: Italian restaurants in London struggle to find staff post-Brexit

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UK hospitality industry hit by crisis as thousands of young Italians are forced out by latest round of rules and cost-of-living crisis

Emanuela Reccia has lived in London for almost a decade. She was a teenager when she left her home city of Naples to become a waitress in the UK, bringing her expertise and love of Italian cuisine to the capital.

But the 27-year-old, like thousands of other Italians working in the UK hospitality industry, now feels she has no option but to leave and return to Europe after the latest round of post-Brexit rules.

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Energy bills: standing charges are not standing still

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Despite a 12.3% cut in April’s energy price cap, there is an important fixed element in your bill that is rising again

“Great news! Your unit rates are going down.” E.ON’s letter to customers starts with glad tidings – but, as it soon admits, there is an element of their bills that is set to go up in most parts of the country.

Despite a headline cut of 12.3% in April’s energy price cap, yet again standing charges are rising. In E.ON’s case, on its Next Flex tariff, electricity charges are due to rise from 62.205p to 67.9041p – an increase of just over 9% – while for gas, charges go up from 29.595p to 31.894p (up almost 8%).

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Next cheers retail sector with bumper profits and talk of falling prices

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Shares hit new high as chain says consumer backdrop is improving and ‘feels like it is now entering a new era’

Next said the prices it charges customers are falling this year, as the fashion and homeware retailer reported bumper profits and said the UK consumer backdrop was improving.

Simon Wolfson, the group’s chief executive, said that it had been “a long time” since the group had started a financial year in such a positive frame of mind after the positive sales and growth results for the year to January.

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UK politics: Sunak refuses to say how abolition of national insurance would be funded – as it happened

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PM says ‘people trust me on these things’ and refuses to be drawn on whether government would forgo entire £46bn raised from measure

Keir Starmer has accused Jeremy Hunt of repeating the budget mistakes made by Liz Truss during her disastrous premiership.

In comments on the budget during a visit to a building site this morning, Starmer focused on Hunt’s proposal to abolish employees’ national insurance over time, saying that this was a bigger unfunded tax promise than those in Truss’s mini-budget. (See 9.28am.)

How humiliating was that for the government yesterday?

We’ve argued for years that they should get rid of the non-dom tax status, they’ve resisted that. And now, completely out of ideas, the only decent policy they’ve got is the one that they’ve lifted from us.

Nothing that Jeremy Hunt did yesterday, nor anything the OBR said, changes anything very significantly. Which is a shame. Because that means we are still:

-heading for a parliament in which people will on average be worse off at the end than at the start,

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UK petrol and diesel prices jump following Houthi attacks

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Petrol is up 3.2p a litre and diesel 4p a litre as fuel tankers are forced to avoid the Suez canal

The cost of filling up a family car in the UK increased by about £2 this month as the jump in the oil price caused by the Red Sea attacks is felt at the pumps.

In the three weeks to 18 February petrol increased by 3.2p to 143.4p a litre, while diesel rose by 4p to 152p, according to the RAC, which said this was “worrying” for motorists.

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UK savers should pick accounts beating rising cost of living while they can

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Many best rates are easy access and notice options rather than ones that lock money away

This week’s news that inflation stayed steady at 4% in January means it is still possible to put your money in a savings account with an interest rate that beats the rising cost of living.

Returns on fixed-rate savings accounts have been falling, but, so far, variable rate deals have remained unchanged.

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Bank of England governor dampens hopes of interest rate cut

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Andrew Bailey says cost of living had been higher than expected in December despite ‘encouraging’ inflation news

The Bank of England governor has doused hopes that better-than-expected inflation news last month will accelerate cuts in interest rates, stressing the need for further evidence of wage moderation before Threadneedle Street moves.

Appearing before the House of Lords economics committee on Wednesday, Andrew Bailey said it was “encouraging” that inflation had remained unchanged at 4% in January but the previous month’s figure for the cost of living had been higher than predicted.

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More than 11 million Britons have less than £1,000 in savings

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Resolution Foundation calls for auto-enrolment into saving schemes, as millions have no ‘rainy day’ fund

More than 11 million working-age people in Britain don’t have basic “rainy day” savings of at least £1,000, according to a report that warns that the poorest households are struggling to build up financial resilience amid the cost of living crisis.

The Resolution Foundation said people across Britain faced a “triple savings challenge” of insufficient savings, an inability to cope financially with major life events such as family breakdown, and inadequate retirement incomes.

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Private tenants in Scotland face ‘big rent rises and mass evictions’ from April

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Campaigners say renters served notices of increases of 30% to 60% in advance of cap and other emergency protections ending

Private tenants in Scotland are facing big rent rises and mass evictions as emergency protections expire at the end of next month, campaigners have warned.

The Scottish government has “in effect rubber-stamped rent increases from April”, says Ruth Gilbert, the national campaigns chair of the Scotland-wide tenants’ union Living Rent, while transitional measures are inadequate and confusing, leaving many unaware what their legal rights are.

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UK’s January sales failed to revive consumer spending, say retailers

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Sales growth slowed last month amid cost of living crisis, poor weather and rail strikes

The traditional January sales on the high street failed to inspire a revival in consumer spending last month, as households continued to cut back amid the cost of living crisis.

Britain’s largest retailers said sales growth slowed last month as higher living costs weighed heavily on consumers, while weather conditions and strikes on the transport network also hit spending.

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