[ Britain’s biggest mortgage lender Halifax has become the latest brand to reveal it will increase mortgage rates this week, following a slew of other hikes earlier this week. Halifax emailed brokers today to say that from Friday, it will be increasing mortgage rates on numerous deals by up to 0.2 percentage points. It is … Read more
[ It was 21°C and a feast was laid out on the table in front of me. I reached out to scoop up hummus with a chunk of bread before my attention was immediately drawn back to my left. Below, framed by stone-coloured parasols, were two of the Pyramids of Giza. The fact I’d seen … Read more
[ The water industry, the Tories and Labour have faced public outcry after new figures showed record amounts of raw sewage were pumped into Britain’s rivers and seas last year. Campaigners argue that Labour’s plans to beef up oversight of pollution should it win the general election are “feeble” while green Tory MPs argued that the … Read more
[ The Government is set to collect record inheritance tax receipts this year, according to the latest figures. The Treasury is on course to collect record receipts of £7.54bn, passing the previous record take £7.1bn collected last year. HM Revenue & Customs data for April 2023 to February 2024 showed it hauled in £6.8bn inheritance … Read more
[ Making do with mushrooms when you ordered tampons or laundering clothes with Pils rather than Persil may seem ridiculous but are just some of the strange online shopping substitutions to emerge from a customer survey. Grocery shopping online has always been something of a game of Russian roulette but some random replacements defy all … Read more
[ The Home Office has sacked its chief immigration inspector after he claimed that high-risk aircraft are landing in Britain without security checks on passengers. David Neal “breached” the terms of his appointment and had “lost the confidence of the Home Secretary”, the department said. Mr Neal, who was independent chief inspector of borders and … Read more
[ Britain entered a recession in the final quarter of 2023 after contracting by 0.3 per cent in the final three months of the year, data from the Office for National Statistics shows. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. Today’s figure follows a fall of 0.1 per cent in the … Read more
[ Unless you live under a rock you’ll have seen the word “Zoe” almost everywhere of late – on train station billboards, on social media, and in the chiller cabinet of your local Marks and Spencer. Although you might not actually have seen it at the latter – every time I visited my local M&S … Read more
[ Is the mortgage market turbulence getting you down? Have you got a mortgage-related question you need answering? Email in and we’ll get one of our experts to reply. Nick Mendes, mortgage technical manager at John Charcol, has given his advice to a reader below. If you have a question for our experts, email us … Read more
[ It is not “that difficult” for people to get on to the housing ladder, the chairman of the NatWest Group has said. Speaking on the Today programme on Radio 4, Sir Howard Davies said that while people have to save to buy a property “that’s the way it always used to be”. Pressed by … Read more
