Money blog: Britons to see big rise in many bills next month - here's how much everything is going up (2024)

EasyJet packages will not offer attractions such as zoos or anything that involve animals in performances and sporting events.

Launching a new animal welfare policy, the tour operator said it was committed to experiences that do not threaten the welfare or conservation of animals.

Amazonhas opened its first disaster relief hub in Europe, housing items needed after incidents such as earthquakes, wildfires and floods.

The centre, in the online giant's base in Rheinberg, Germany, will be filled with 1,000 pallets of relief items like tents, blankets, and hygiene kits.

HSBC has warned people could see a spike in impersonation scams as the end of the tax year approaches.

Fraudsters stole £1.1m from HSBC customers in March last year, with people more likely to expect to be contacted by HMRC to clarify details on their tax returns before April.

Scammers posing as HMRC via phishing emails, calls and texts may try to persuade people to send them money in addition to stealing personal details that will be harvested for use in future scams.

John Lewis has returned to profit for the first time in three years but staff face another year with no bonus.

The company behind Waitrose grocery shops and the John Lewis department stores recorded a profit of £56m, after a loss of £234m in the previous financial year.

It said it would not hand a bonus to workers "after careful consideration" (they have given staff a bonus every year bar two since 1953) but would increase overall pay.

Adidas has posted its first annual loss in more than 30 years, as it continues to deal with the impact of the end of its lucrative deal with US rapper Kanye West.

The sportswear giant said sales in the US were likely to fall again this year as stores deal with a drop in demand and excess stock.

Chief executive Bjorn Gulden said the results were "by far not good enough" but the end of 2023 was better than expected.

Adidas was left with Yeezy shoes worth $1.3bn (£1bn) after cutting ties with West over his antisemitic comments in 2022.

Welsh Water has been ordered to pay out nearly £40m after the industry watchdog found the firm misled it over its record of tackling leaks and saving water.

Regulator Ofwat said an investigation that started in May last year found evidence of a "significant failure of governance and management oversight".

The company will have to pay £24.9m in redress to its customers, which will lower bills, while a further £15m fine will be absorbed by the water firm, according to Ofwat.

One of the most commented on stories in the Money blog this week has been Santander announcing a hike to some of its mortgage rates (it lowered others).

Several readers wrote in wondering how mortgage rates could go up at the same time the bank was lowering rates for some of its savers.

This was representative...

I've just received notice of an interest rate reduction on my Santander Easy Access Limited Edition (Issue 3) a/c from its current 5.2% to 4.2% w.e.f 20th May. How can Santander justify this reduction whilst simultaneously increasing their mortgage rate?

Geoff

We got in touch with Santander to ask what was going on.

They told us:

• We take into account a range of factors when setting our interest rates, including market conditions, the investment required to continually improve services for customers – including investment in our branch network – and the interest rates we receive;
• While mortgage rates continue to fluctuate, our average mortgage rates have fallen by around 1% since September, when the savings product was launched, while base rate has remained unchanged.

Elsewhere, our post earlier today about Britons increasingly giving up baths due to the cost has prompted several readers to share their experiences...

I shower at the gym and there's hot food if I'm hungry. Council run and it's a stone's throw from my house and cheap.

no cheese

I bath once a week now and wash daily with cold water because I can't afford the energy prices. I've lost my self pride and feeling of worth.

Arthur north east

Have tried putting the plug in the bath while showering. If you have a decent wash, shampoo your hair and maybe shave your legs. The bath is just as full as if I'd taken a soak in the first place! Have a go, you'll be surprised.

Questioning what we assume

A short time later this correspondent got in touch with a second message...

Just googled it and a standard bath holds 135-175 litres of water. A 10-minute shower takes 165 litres. Fact-checked with my own experience. Things are being branded eco and carbon neutral when they are plainly not.

Finally, in response to our Basically... explainer on non dom status, which the government has suggested it is banning...

I am trying to understand the report – is scrapping the non dom status a joke if there is a four-year grace period before it is enacted?

EmilieS

If you missed it, here's the explainer...

1 April is nicknamed National Price Hike Day, as it's when government bodies and private companies traditionally increase the cost of goods and services ahead of the new financial year.

So what can we expect this year?

TV and broadband

BT, EE,Plusnet and Vodafone customers will be charged 7.9% more from April. These companies pin their prices to December's inflation figure plus 3.9%, which is common practice in the industry.

Virgin Media and O2, which merged in 2021, are upping prices by 8.8%, as they use the retail price index from January plus 3.9%. There are caveats which mean some O2 customers will see prices rise by less than this.

Sky is also implementing price rises, meaning most Sky TV and broadband customers will pay an average of 6.7% more from 1 April.

Council tax

Most people who live in councils with responsibility for social care in England will see their bills rise by the maximum of 4.99%.

In areas where the councils don't oversee social care, the rise for most will be 2.99%.

Birmingham City Council, which has declared effective bankruptcy, has been given permission to hike council tax by 21% over two years due to a black hole caused partly by equal pay claims and a botched IT systems rollout.

Council tax has been frozen by the devolved government in Scotland, while rises in Wales range anywhere from 3% to 21%. Northern Ireland uses a rating system instead of council tax, and rises are also expected here.

TV licence

The annual cost of a standard colour TV licence will rise to £169.50 from 1 April - an increase of £10.50 on the current price of £159 a year.

Rent for social housing

The CPI rate of inflation in September - 6.7% - is used to determine the yearly rise in rents.

For 2024-25, the limit will be 6.7% plus an additional 1%.

Water

The average household water and sewerage bill in England and Wales will go up by an average of 6% from April.

Water UK said the increases would leave households with an average annual bill of £473.

Car tax

Vehicle excise duty will rise on all but the cleanest new and used cars in April.

Increases are generally calculated in line with the RPI rate of inflation and are expected to be about 6%.

Train fares

Rail fares will rise by 8.7% in April for those in Scotland, after the Scottish government argued previous fare freezes were not sustainable.

For those in England and Wales, fares rose by 4.9% on 3 March.

Stamps

The Royal Mail will raise the price of stamps again as the company struggles with a decline in the number of letters being posted.

The price of a first class and second class stamp will increase by 10p to £1.35 and 85p respectively from 2 April.

KitKat and Quality Street maker Nestle is being urged to become less reliant on selling products with high levels of salt, sugar and fats.

A coalition of shareholders have put forward a resolution calling for the company to improve its impact on consumers' health, which will be put to a vote next month.

More than half of the food giant's sales last year were below a recognised threshold for being healthy, or healthier.

The coalition, led by shareholder activist group ShareAction, has raised concern over potential public health impacts of unhealthy foods, as well as reputational and regulatory risks.

It's demanding an annual report from Nestle on how it performs in several areas, including the healthfulness of its food and drink sales.

The coalition includes Britain's biggest asset manager Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM).

ShareAction chief executive Catherine Howarth said Nestle "has an enormous influence on billions of people's diets and lives", and has "consistently failed" to explain how it will "shift the balance of its sales towards healthier food options".

"Concerned investors have been left with no option but to bring forward a resolution at the company's AGM in April," she said.

Maria Larsson Ortino, LGIM's senior global ESG manager, said the company wanted to "press home" to Nestle "the importance we place on nutrition".

BySarah Taaffe-Maguire, business reporter

Share price gains at Deliveroo were short lived despite a near-doubling of its 2023 pre-tax profit to £85m, from £45m in 2022.

Order numbers haven't changed on the platform but values grew 3% as the cost of food and takeaways rose throughout the year.

After an initial 3.7% share price rise the daily gain stood at 0.3% with stock still below the value when they first came onto the London Stock Exchange.

Having the best day of the most valuable companies that make up the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) was Burberry, with a 2.62% share price growth. There were no financials released from the fashion house today but Saltburn actor Barry Keoghan was announced as the new face of the label a week ago.

Overall it's a flat day for the FTSE 100.

£1= $1.2814 and €1.171.

The oil price is up with a barrel of Brent crude costing $84.68.

Research from the comparison website Uswitch shows rising energy costs have left homeowners thinking about how they wash.

Nearly half of bath-owners (46%) have reduced the number of baths they take, and a brave 12% have swapped washing in hot water to taking cold baths.

Meanwhile, 42% of bath-owners have cut down on the amount of water they fill the tub with.

Maybe you're a shower user instead?

The latest statistics show also people are also reducing the time they spend in the shower, with 44% cutting down.

Uswitch found 26% of consumers turn off the hot water while they are shampooing their hair to save energy, while 24% use energy efficient nozzles.

Another 21% try to shower at the gym or their workplace to save costs at home.

And when it comes to UK cities, Edinburgh residents have cut down on baths the most, with 49% of owners ditching their tub.

Over in Belfast, just 15% have cut back on baths.

First-time buyers are spending two more years paying their mortgages back, according to new data.

Between 2021 and 2023, the average term for payments rose from 30 to 32 years, according to TSB, in a sign of the difficulty Britons are facing getting on the housing ladder.

Overall, first-time buyers accounted for 35% of all mortgage completions with the bank in 2023.

More than half (57%) of first-time buyers took out a joint mortgage for their first home, with 43% purchasing their home solo.

Roland McCormack, TSB mortgage distribution director, said: "Across the UK, the drive to get onto the property ladder is bigger than ever – with first-time buyers taking out extended repayment terms to acquire a home."

Each Thursday we look at a different savings option, explain the pros and cons and reveal the best deals on the market (see table below for that).This week we're talking about the best savings accounts for children. Here's the rundown fromSavings Champion founder Anna Bowes...

It's great to get children interested in saving as early as possible and there are a range of different types of children's savings accounts available - the most common being easy access accounts and regular savings accounts. In addition, you can choose a Junior ISA, which gives many children (and their parents) a tax-free account to save into.

If you, your friends and family were able to gift a total of £9,000 a year to a child (the current Junior ISA allowance), at a rate of 4.95% (the current best JISA rate), you could give them almost £265,000 when they reach 18. Now that's a gift worth having!

Children have their own personal allowance, so for the majority there will be no tax to pay on their savings interest.

If the gross interest earned is less than £100 for each parent's gift, it will be treated as the child's under a "de minimis" rule.

This means that provided the interest earned does not make the child a taxpayer, they will be able to offset this against their personal tax allowance, so it will often be free of tax. But if the interest is more than £100 for each parent's gift, then it will be treated as that parent's interest for tax purposes and therefore they may need to pay tax at their marginal rate - if it takes them above their personal allowance and/or personal savings allowance.

Gifts from any other family members or friends will not be viewed in the same way. Instead, any interest earned will be treated as belonging to the child themselves and therefore can be earned tax free if they are non-taxpayers.

The exception to this rule is on funds deposited into a JISA, child trust fund or NS&I premium bonds - the returns from these are tax free for all.

Click here to look at the best children's savings accounts on Savings Champion

Uswitch has penned an open letter to the big four broadband providers calling for an end to delays for cross-network broadband switching.

The long-awaited One Touch Switch process makes switching easier for consumers by standardising the process across different networks.

However, the UK's "Big Four" broadband providers - BT, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk - today missed their second target date to implement this.

This missed deadline comes weeks before the major broadband providers roll out a series of mid-contract price rises.

"The timing of the missed deadlines - just before industry price rises - adds deeper urgency to the issue," Angus McCarey, CEO of Uswitch, wrote in the open letter.

"By our estimates, industry price rises have already cost consumers an extra £427m on their broadband bills since 2023 and they are about to go up again."

The first deadline to reform the switching process was 3 April 2023 and a second target date 14 March 2024 was set by Ofcom and TOTSCo.

This week has seen a new target date of 12 September set.

Uswitch research shows 28% of UK broadband customers intend to switch their broadband providers this year, which would unlock savings of up to £1.43bn based on average savings.

We have reached out to the "big four" for comment.

A Sky spokesperson said: "We're committed to implementing the One Touch Switch process and have been working with industry to implement this as soon as possible. It's a significant change and collectively we need to ensure that it works as seamlessly as possible for customers from day one."

A TalkTalk spokesperson said:"We're working closely with other providers to support the implementation of One Touch Switching, and are committed to delivering it as quickly as possible for consumers."

A BT consumer spokesperson said:"We fully support the move to OTS and remain committed to delivering it by (or ahead of) the deadline. This is a highly complex, pan-industry endeavour to build, integrate and test a new switching system. It's critical that trials are properly completed across all major CPs to ensure best possible customer experience when switching."

Virgin Media did not reply.