New rules have come into force governing the claims made by sustainable funds. As sustainable investing has grown in popularity, the issue of ‘greenwashing’ has moved into the spotlight. However, investors, turned fund detectives, have discovered that funds with...
The National Audit Office (NAO) has published a report on HMRC customer service which isn’t a happy story. Source: HMRC historic data, Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) estimates A common tactic for grabbing a headline, be it a politician or organisation, is to...
April’s yearly inflation figure fell from 0.9% to 2.3%, so why does inflation still feel high? Source: Office for National Statistics (ONS) April’s Consumer Prices Index (CPI) showed annual inflation had fallen to 2.3%, its lowest level since July 2021 and...
Market responses to elections should be treated with caution. 2024 is a year of elections around the globe – in varying shades of democracy. On some counts, around 60 countries will vote, representing close to half of the world’s population. This includes eight of the...
The fees for obtaining probate in England and Wales have increased. The fee charged to obtain probate in England and Wales has been increased from £273 to £300 (10%) and for confirmation in Scotland, which has a sliding scale by 2%. Northern Ireland revised its...
Not That Interested: savers short-changed on rate hikes. The Bank of England has been looking at the impact of its regular interest rate increases since December 2021, with analysis revealing savers are being short-changed. Every three months the Bank of England...
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been sorting through its inflation shopping basket. Every year in March, the ONS announces the results of a review of the approximately 750 items which it uses to compute inflation indices, such as the Consumer Price Index...
The Prime Minister has met his pledge of halving inflation, but we’re not out of the woods yet. In the first week of 2023, the then still new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, set out “five immediate priorities” for his government. The first of these was: “We will halve...
What was almost certainly the last Budget before the election was a serving of the widely expected, sprinkled with a handful of small surprises. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, delivered the Spring Budget 2024 on 6 March. As anticipated, it was a typical...
New data on marriage and civil partnerships shows a significant threshold has been crossed. ‘Population estimates by marital status and living arrangements, England and Wales: 2022’, sounds like a rather esoteric piece of academic output from the Office for National...
As the FTSE 100 turned 40 on 3 January 2024, we look at how it compared to its predecessor and the lessons learned from four decades of growth versus inflation. The Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 Index, to use the Footsie’s full name, has celebrated its...
A date to note in this year’s calendar is the early Spring Budget on Wednesday 6 March. The Treasury issued a press release in the time between Christmas and the New Year revealing the Spring Budget date, a week earlier than in 2023. The unusual timing of the...
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