Autumn Statement, food prices, BHS and mortgages

One story dominates the financial news this morning: the Autumn Statement. A slew of predictions, speculation and leaks feature in newspapers and websites, including yesterday’s widely trailed announcement of a £1 billion boost to improve broadband speeds for up to 2 million homes and businesses. Other measures expected in Philip Hammond’s first Autumn Statement include ways to increase workers’ incomes and a £1.4 billion package aimed at delivering 40,000 new affordable homes.  Also on the cards is a rate reduction for the withdrawal of benefits when people start work and an increase in the National Living Wage to £7.50 an hour. The Times reports that the Chancellor will ban letting agents from imposing so-called ‘rip-off’ fees that cost people renting up to £380 million a year. Citizens Advice says that these fees have soared to an average of £337 per tenancy. A number of other measures have already been announced, including a clampdown on fraudulent whiplash claims in an effort to reduce the cost of motor insurance and £1.3 billion to improve Britain’s road network. Meanwhile, it is thought that, in the first major economic statement since the Brexit vote, the Chancellor will announce higher borrowing costs and slower growth. The BBC says that the the big news from today’s Autumn Statement will be exactly how bad the public finances will be over the coming years. The Autumn Statement will be made to the House of Commons at 12.30pm today. Food prices The Guardian reports that Aldi and Lidl have started increasing the cost of basic groceries, including milk and bananas, as the squeeze from the Brexit-driven fall in the value of the pound beds in. The supermarkets have raised the price of a four-pint bottle of milk to 99p, from 95p – a 4 per cent lift, which puts them on a par with Asda and just 1p behind Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Tesco. Meanwhile, a pack of bananas is up to 72p from 68p – an increase of about 6 per cent – putting them on a par with the major supermarkets, which sell 1kg of loose bananas for about 68p. BHS MPs have written to the Pensions Regulator to enquire if assets owned by Sir Philip Green could be seized in order to pay the pensions of BHS staff. According to The Telegraph, “a letter from Frank Field, chairman of Parliament’s Work and Pensions Committee, to Lesley Titcomb, chief executive of the regulator, asked to clarify whether the regulator had any power to plug the hole in BHS’s pension fund by acquiring ‘assets other than cash’ from the person or company from which payment is being sought”. These assets could include Sir Philip’s multi-million pound yacht. Savings

The majority of parents in the UK are preparing for their children to flee the nest before they’ve even become teenagers, new research by a money saving website in the UK has revealed. The research suggests that of the parents who stated they had already started saving for when their child moves out, 27 per cent had already saved between £1,000 and £2,000, while 15 per cent had already saved £5,000 or more.

The research was carried out by www.VoucherCodesPro.co.uk. It polled a total of 2,367 respondents, all of whom were parents of at least one child aged between four and 17 years old.

Mortgages

Just a quarter of British mortgage borrowers have switched provider in search of a better deal, according to research from online mortgage broker Trussle.

The study of more than 4,000 people, carried out by YouGov, found that mortgage holders were more than twice as likely to have switched energy provider than their current mortgage lender, despite the annual savings from doing so being far lower. Switching energy provider can lead to savings of around £200 a year, a small sum compared to the £2,800 the average UK household pays over the odds by not shopping around for the best mortgage.