Uk economy

Are mortgage rates the next crisis?

The average two-year fixed mortgage now sits at 6 per cent, according to financial data group Moneyfacts – just below the 6.65 per cent reached in December last year, after the fallout from Liz Truss’s mini-Budget. Five-year fixed rates aren’t too far behind, at 5.7 per cent. For many of the 2.4 million homeowners whose mortgages are up for renewal between now and the end of next year, this is, at best, cause for alarm. At worst, it’s an alert to a crisis. Later this week, we’ll get last month’s inflation data – and the next rate update from the Bank of England. Threadneedle Street’s dilemma is only getting worse. Between

Britain is set for the slowest economic recovery in the G7

Britain is set for the slowest economic bounce-back in the G7 and one of the slowest recoveries among wealthy nations, according to new forecasts published today by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The OECD has updated its forecasts for global economic recovery, showing a return to pre-Covid GDP levels by the end of next year. The central scenario estimates a 4.2 per cent fall in global GDP this year, matched by a 4.2 per cent lift next year – while suggesting that its ‘upside scenario’ becomes more likely if successful vaccines are rolled out at a relatively fast pace. But while these latest forecasts bode better for the global economy,

Gina Miller should leave the Bank of England’s new boss alone

She’s back. With Brexit ‘done’ and with most of the country just grateful to have moved on from the whole saga, we might have thought we had heard the last of Gina Miller. Miller, who became something of a figurehead in the anti-Brexit movement, could quietly return to doing whatever it was she used to get up to. Not so. Now she is back on the attack, demanding a ‘review’ of the appointment of Andrew Bailey as Governor of the Bank of England. What’s her complaint this time? Apparently as head of the Financial Conduct Authority, Bailey presided over “a toxic cocktail of negligence, incompetence and indifference to the needs

It’s time for an honest debate about the true cost of going net zero

When the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) launched its report on the feasibility of entirely decarbonising the UK economy, we were told the expense involved was manageable. The CCC’s chief executive Chris Stark explained that the project ‘carried a cost – of one to two per cent of GDP – which was affordable’. His claims were noted approvingly by MPs during debates in Parliament on whether to enshrine a ‘net zero’ emissions target in law. While others complained about the lack of a clear cost-benefit case, CCC chairman Lord Deben put aside these concerns. He told the Lords: ‘the report has been recognised universally as the most seriously presented, costed