Worldwide Financial Planning

Meanwhile, stickier inflation makes it harder for the Bank of England to cut rates in the very short term and higher government borrowing has wiped out any chance of further tax cuts to sweeten the electorate.

LET’S look at how they compare. I’ll have to be broad with the comparison by looking at house prices across the whole of the UK. I’ll compare average rents, repairs, mortgages and see how the numbers work out.

In monthly terms, CPI was 0.3% (consensus: 0.1%), compared to 0.6% in March. Similarly, core CPI inflation (ex-energy, food, alcohol and tobacco) came in at 3.9% (consensus: 3.6%) vs 4.2% in March.

After three months of CPI creeping up, the small decline allowed traders to breathe a little easier, allowed the recent rally in government bonds to continue and added to the equity rally that only a few weeks ago appeared to be running out of steam. Potentially more significant is the slight slowdown in US consumer spending.

Owning a home will give you the most control, however. A little improvement alteration here and there on a rented property will be fine, but bigger changes are wasted money and may not even be allowed.

This needs to be kept in context as the economy is around 0.2% bigger than this time last year, but at least this is going in the right direction. This will no doubt be welcomed by Rishi Sunak who can chalk off another of his five pledges, although progress on the remaining three remains elusive.