January news from your local pension money saving expert

January news from your local pension money saving expert Christina Clegg:

• The Government said that it would not pay compensation to the so called WASPI women for the way they were unfairly treated by past pension legislation. That is despite the Parliamentary Health and Service Ombudsman finding that the Government should pay compensation of between £3.5 billion and £10 billion. It seems its perfectly “normal” for the findings of an independent Ombudsman the most respected pension money saving expert to be rejected, regardless the amount of money spent on the investigation. Of course, financial advisors are not able to reject the findings of the Financial Ombudsman Service.
• Inflation rose to 2.6% in November.
• The bank of England held bas rate at 4.75% in December.
• It’s been reported that the Government is considering 1% deposits for first time buyers to try and stimulate the housing market. This would be welcome to thousands of young people caught in a rent trap because they can’t save for a deposit. But some are concerned that it would lead to house price inflation and increase the risk of negative equity.
• 4,400 people decided to submit their tax returns on Christmas Day!
• Another 38,000 on New Years Eve and 28,000 on New Years Day. But with a month to go until the 31^{st of} January deadline, 5.4 million people still needed to submit their returns.
• The new government is deeply unpopular already with businesses in the UK. According to a Bank of England survey of business, many were concerned about the increase in national insurance contributions:
• 54% said they would have to raise their prices, 61% said they would make lower profits, 53% expected to employ fewer people and 39% said they would pay lower wages. Not quite what the government was hoping for!
• House prices rose by 3.3% in 2024, so that the average price of a house nationally is now £298,166. Not around here it isn’t of course.
• Inflation fell to 2.5% in December down by 0.1%.
• Torsten Bell has been appointed as the new Pensions Minister.
• The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned two more financial services ads for providing misleading statements about potential growth.
• The UK economy grew by 0.1% in November after two months without any growth.
• According to Hargreaves Lansdown the average household is now £31,500 short of what they need to enjoy a “moderate” retirement income. The worst affected area is Hull, with an average shortfall of £54,000 per household. Four times more than five years ago as a result of higher inflation. Speak to a money saving pensions expert as soon as you can to avoid this happening to you.
• The FCA have issued a scam warning in relation to the Goldman Sachs savings bank Marcus. It seems that scammers have set up a cloned website impersonating the bank to try and dupe savers. Please be aware.
• Unemployment has risen again to 4.4% of the working population.
• That might have something to do with the fact that Business rates have increased by £1 billion in the last year alone and that’s before the increases in National Insurance and the Minimum Wage kick in from April. Expect worse news to come on the job front.
• The Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) predicts that it will receive 37,000 complaints about fraud and about scams this year. Most will be related to banking and loans, but they will also include crypto scams and push payment scams. Please be careful.
• Over 10,000 millionaires have left the UK in 2024 as a result of the governments tax changes. That’s an awful lot of tax to find from somewhere else.
• On average less than 20% of financial adviser and local pension money saving experts are under 45.
• New figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that public sector borrowing was £10 billion higher than this time last year, way higher than the government predicted.