UK economic growth confirmed at 0.7% in first quarter; Lincolnshire oil refinery calls in administrators – business live | Business
UK households hit by squeeze on living standards despite fastest growth in G7
Here’s our full story on the UK GDP data:
UK households faced a renewed cost of living squeeze in the first three months of 2025 amid increases in taxes and inflation, official figures show, despite the economy growing at the fastest rate in the G7.
The Office for National Statistics said an important measure of living standards – real household disposable income per head – fell by 1% in the first quarter after growth of 1.8% in the final three months of 2024, in the first quarterly decline for almost two years.
The households’ saving ratio – which estimates the percentage of disposable income Britons save rather than spend – slumped by 1.1 percentage points to 10.9%, although this remains historically high.
The signs of a fresh hit to living standards come despite the latest snapshot confirming that the UK economy grew by 0.7% in the first quarter, the fastest rate in the G7 group of rich nations.
Liz McKeown, the ONS director of economic statistics, said:
The saving ratio fell for the first time in two years this quarter, as rising costs for items such as fuel, rent and restaurant meals contributed to higher spending, although it remains relatively strong.
Ministers had welcomed the initial first-quarter growth estimate as evidence that Labour’s economic policies were starting to bear fruit after a rocky first few months in office. However, the more detailed snapshot highlights the squeeze on living standards, which risks undermining Keir Starmer’s promise for households to feel the benefits.
Key events
Lindsey oil refinery owner calls in administrators; government urged to act
Graeme Wearden
Newsflash: The British high court has appointed Teneo as the administrator of the owners of the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, Reuters reports.
State Oil Limited and Prax Treasury Limited own the 133,000 barrel per day Lindsey refinery, which is located on a 500-acre site five miles from the Humber Estuary.
Joint administrator Clare Boardman says:
“We will be considering all options for the Group, including the prospect of a sale for the Group’s upstream business and retail operations in the UK and Europe, all of which remain outside of insolvency.”
Sky News is reporting that that State Oil was forced to call in administrators amid mounting losses at the refinery.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham is urging ministers to take action to save jobs:
“The Lindsey oil refinery is strategically important, and the government must intervene immediately to protect workers and fuel supplies.
“Unite has constantly warned the government that its policies have placed the oil and industry on a cliff edge. It has failed to act and instead put its fingers in its ears.
“The government needs a short-term strategy to keep Lindsey operating and a sustainable long-term plan to fully protect all oil and gas workers.”
UK households hit by squeeze on living standards despite fastest growth in G7
Here’s our full story on the UK GDP data:
UK households faced a renewed cost of living squeeze in the first three months of 2025 amid increases in taxes and inflation, official figures show, despite the economy growing at the fastest rate in the G7.
The Office for National Statistics said an important measure of living standards – real household disposable income per head – fell by 1% in the first quarter after growth of 1.8% in the final three months of 2024, in the first quarterly decline for almost two years.
The households’ saving ratio – which estimates the percentage of disposable income Britons save rather than spend – slumped by 1.1 percentage points to 10.9%, although this remains historically high.
The signs of a fresh hit to living standards come despite the latest snapshot confirming that the UK economy grew by 0.7% in the first quarter, the fastest rate in the G7 group of rich nations.
Liz McKeown, the ONS director of economic statistics, said:
The saving ratio fell for the first time in two years this quarter, as rising costs for items such as fuel, rent and restaurant meals contributed to higher spending, although it remains relatively strong.
Ministers had welcomed the initial first-quarter growth estimate as evidence that Labour’s economic policies were starting to bear fruit after a rocky first few months in office. However, the more detailed snapshot highlights the squeeze on living standards, which risks undermining Keir Starmer’s promise for households to feel the benefits.
Simon Gammon, managing partner at Knight Frank Finance, said that while mortgage approvals ticked up, they are “broadly consistent with a property market treading water”. He explained:
Mortgage rates have largely plateaued, with leading fixed deals just below 4%. Lenders are adjusting pricing at the margins – some cuts, the occasional rise – but it’s more about managing business volumes than responding to any major shift in outlook.
Remortgaging jumped and will continue to rise as the year progresses – 1.8 million fixed rate mortgages are due to mature during 2025. This will be painful for those moving off five-year fixed rate products agreed in 2020, when mortgage rates were still ultra-low.
The housing market remains driven by first-time buyers and families who really need to move, rather than discretionary buyers in higher price brackets. Downsizers are active too, though many are struggling to offload larger homes in favour of smaller ones, where activity is stronger.
The outlook for mortgage rates is benign, and recent labour market data points to a weakening economy that could unlock further base rate cuts – perhaps to 3.75% by the year end. Still, with leading fixed rates unlikely to dip below 3.7% before 2026, current sluggish conditions look set to persist.
Karim Haji, global and UK head of financial services at KPMG, said:
May’s uptick in mortgage approvals bucks the downward trend we’ve seen throughout the year so far. The gradual easing of interest rates could be helping to boost confidence and demand amongst mortgage borrowers.
The cost of living remains high, but a drop in consumer borrowing in May signals that rising incomes are starting to feed through to the cost of day-to-day expenses.
Borrowers may also be awaiting further movement on the Bank of England’s base rate before deciding to take out more credit although falling mortgage rates may help increase confidence and appetite.
Default rates remain high, despite the interest rate cut last month, and it is critical that lenders remain ready to support customers that are struggling to pay their bills.
With the economic outlook remaining uncertain, lenders will need to be alive to the financial struggles of their customers and be ready to step in to support them both now and in the months ahead.
UK mortgage approvals rebound in May while credit card borrowing falls
Mortgage approvals for house purchases in the UK bounced back last month, while consumer credit fell as people borrowed less on credit cards.
Mortgage approvals for house purchases rose by 2,400 to 63,000 in May, marking the end of four months of decline, according to the Bank of England. Approvals for remortgaging also increased, by 6,200 to 41,500, which is the largest increase since February 2024 when it was 6,600.
The latest figures from the Bank of England also showed that net mortgage borrowing increased by £2.8 bn to £2.1bn in May, following a large decrease in net borrowing of £13.8bn in April.
Consumer credit more than halved to £900m in May from £1.9bn in April. Within this, net borrowing through credit cards slumped to £100m in May, from £1.2bn in April. Net borrowing through other forms of consumer credit fell slightly to £700m, from £800m.
Nathan Emerson, chief executive of Propertymark, a professional body for estate agents with 18,000 members, said:
It is incredibly positive news to see an increased number of mortgage applications approved. It is one of the loudest signals of them all regarding consumer affordability, and it is also a massive vote of confidence from lenders in the longer-term prospects of the economy too.
As we head into the summer months, we have witnessed on average the number of viewings per property available see an uplift of around 30% compared to the month previous. On top of this, we have also seen the UK Government make a pledge to create a National Housing Bank which could bring significant investment to help build 500,000 new homes, enabling a potential greater degree of flexibility for those who aspire to buy.
Britons could soon install balcony solar panels in flats and rental homes
As we are gearing up for another sunny and hot June day:
Those living in flats or rented homes in the UK could soon plug in their own “balcony solar panels” to save on their energy bills under plans set out in the government’s solar power strategy.
The proposals could mean that British households that are unable to install rooftop solar panels will soon join millions of people across Europe who generate their own electricity with “plug-in” panels.
These panels, found on balconies across Spain and Germany, can be plugged directly into a home’s power socket to generate solar electricity for the household.
The DIY panels are already fitted to about 1.5m balconies in Germany, where they are known as Balkonkraftwerk (balcony power plant). They typically save households about 30% on their energy bills and cost between €400-800, with no installation fees required, meaning they pay for themselves within six years.
Lifetime Isas ‘could lead to savers making poor investment choices’, MPs say
Lifetime Isas could lead to savers making poor investment decisions and may not be the best use of public money, a cross-party committee of MPs has said.
In a report published on Monday, the Treasury select committee described rules which penalise benefit claimants as “nonsensical” and concluded that lifetime Isas, known as Lisas, may have been mis-sold to savers eligible for universal credit or housing benefit.
Lisas, launched by the then Conservative chancellor, George Osborne, in 2017, allow people to save towards their first home or for their retirement. Deposits are topped up by the government, up to a maximum £1,000 a year.
However, the Treasury committee said that the dual-purpose design of the Lisa may be steering people away from more suitable savings products.
Cash Lisas could suit those saving for a first home but may not achieve the best outcome for those using them as a retirement savings product, as they are unable to invest in higher-risk but potentially higher-return products such as bonds and equities, the report said.
Raising another issue, the committee said that any savings held in a Lisa can affect eligibility for universal credit or housing benefit under the current system, even though this does not apply to other personal or workplace pension schemes.
The committee said if this was not changed, the accounts should “include warnings that the lifetime Isa is an inferior product for anyone who might one day be in receipt of universal credit”.
Number of new UK entry-level jobs has dived since ChatGPT launch
The number of new entry-level UK jobs has dropped by almost a third since the launch of ChatGPT, new figures suggest, as companies use AI to cut back the size of their workforces.
Vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped 32% since the launch of the AI chatbot in November 2022, according to research by the job search site Adzuna. These entry-level jobs now account for 25% of the market in the UK, down from 28.9% in 2022.
It comes as businesses increasingly use AI as a route to improve efficiency and reduce staff numbers. This month the chief executive of BT, Allison Kirkby, said advances in AI could presage deeper job cuts at the telecoms company, after it outlined plans two years ago to shed between 40,000 and 55,000 workers.
Meanwhile, Dario Amodei, the boss of the $61bn (£44.5bn) AI developer Anthropic, has warned the technology could wipe out half of all entry-level office jobs in the next five years, and push up unemployment by between 10% and 20%.
WH Smith sells high street chain for less than expected
Lauren Almeida
In other news, WH Smith is selling its high street business for £12m less than expected amid ‘softer trading’.
WH Smith has officially sold its high street business, but will receive £12m less than initially expected, as it struggles against a period of “softer trading”, the company said.
In March, the books and stationery retailer agreed to sell its 480 high street stores to Modella Capital, the investment firm which also owns Hobbycraft. As part of the deal, the high street business, which employs about 5,000 people, will be rebranded as TGJones. WH Smith is retaining its brand for its travel shops in railway stations, airports and hospitals.
The deal was initially expected to generate cash of £50m for WH Smith, but it now expects proceeds of £40m, thanks to a period of softer trading and the change of ownership leading to a “more cautious outlook amongst stakeholders”, the company said.
It comes amid rising concern around the health of British retail. The latest official data showed retail sales volumes dropped at their fastest rate since December 2023 in May, down 2.7% month-on-month and 1.3% lower than a year ago. That decline was driven by a drop in sales volumes at food retailers, the Office for National Statistics said.
Matt Swannell, chief economic advisor to the EY Item Club forecasting group, said while the GDP figures confirm a strong start to 2025, “this pace of growth appears temporary”.
There appear to be problems with residual seasonality in the data which is making the early part of the year look artificially strong. Q1 was also boosted by a strong increase in aircraft investment, which is likely to unwind, and some business appears to have been brought forward to beat changes in US trade policy. The early signs are that the UK looks set for much softer growth in the second quarter of 2025, with output already having fallen in April.
A feature of the last year was that households preferred to save rather than spend a lot of their real income gains. A saving ratio of 10.9% in Q1 was far higher than usual, although it was a fall of 1.1ppt from Q4. With earnings growth slowing and inflation set to rise, growth in real income looks set to slow across the rest of this year, but with scope for households to save a little less, there is space for consumption to be cushioned from this slowdown.
After the strong start to 2025, the UK looks set for another year of weak growth, with headwinds continuing to intensify. On top of weakening real income growth, fiscal policy has been tightened, while some households will still feel the lagged effects of past interest rate rises. Global trade market volatility and the accompanying elevated levels of uncertainty have added to the headwinds.
People have less income in the UK – real household disposable income per head is estimated to have fallen in the latest quarter by 1.0%, compared with a revised 1.8% increase in the previous quarter.
This morning’s 2nd release of Q1 GDP shows why plenty of nuance is needed in appraising recent UK economic performance. Strong growth in GDP per capita (+0.6% QoQ), yet a sharp decline in Real Household Disposable Income (-1.0% QoQ). Expect plenty of data cherry-picking his week. https://t.co/cV1KtcCx0O pic.twitter.com/hExUa7Yikd
— Simon French (@Frencheconomics) June 30, 2025
Ruth Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics, warns that there is little underlying momentum in the economy, as more recent data suggests.
GDP growth was unrevised at 0.7% q/q in Q1, but we already know this strength has started to unwind. The underlying picture is still that there is very little momentum in the economy.
Growth was a bit less dependent on a likely one-off surge in business investment in Q1 than previously estimated. That was revised down, from 5.9% q/q to 3.9% q/q. What’s more, consumer spending growth was revised up a notch, from 0.2% q/q to 0.4% q/q.
And the news that the household saving rate fell from 12.0% in Q4 to 10.9% in Q1 provides some encouraging signs that consumer spending growth will edge higher in the quarters ahead.
That said, these minor tweaks to the shape of growth don’t change the big picture. Business investment and net trade remained the main drivers of growth. And given activity has been brought forward ahead of US tariffs and the leap in business investment reflects a one-off leap in spending on aircraft, these sources of growth won’t be sustained. Indeed, we already know that exports to the US fell by 31% m/m in April after they had risen by 34% in total in the five months to February.
Of course, all this backward-looking news is less important than the timely data which suggest GDP has done little more than flatline in Q2. The latest GDP figures do not change our view that the economy will grow by just 1.0% this year, which would be no better than last year and a little weaker than the consensus forecast.
Introduction: UK economic growth confirmed at 0.7% in first quarter as household saving ratio falls
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.
The UK economy grew by 0.7% between January and March, but households saved less amid the cost of living crisis, according to the latest official figures.
The GDP growth figure was unchanged from the Office for National Statistics’ previous estimate.
The service industries grew by 0.7% in the first quarter while production expanded by 1.3% and the construction sector eked out 0.3% growth.
The household saving ratio, a measure of how much people save, fell for the first time in two years, to 10.9% from 12%, as they spent more on fuel, rent and restaurant meals.
ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said:
While overall quarterly growth was unrevised, our updated set of figures show the economy still grew strongly in February, with growth now coming in a little higher in March too.
There was broad based growth across services, while manufacturing also had a strong quarter.
The saving ratio fell for the first time in two years this quarter, as rising costs for items such as fuel, rent and restaurant meals contributed to higher spending, although it remains relatively strong.
The ONS said that while the quarterly figure was unrevised, monthly growth was slightly higher than first thought in March, at 0.4% versus its initial estimate of 0.2%. January saw zero growth and February posted expansion of 0.5%, both unrevised.
In April, GDP is estimated to have fallen by 0.3%, largely because of a drop in services output.
The UK-US trade deal has come into effect today, which means lower tariffs for UK carmakers (10%) and the aerospace sector (0%).
The Agenda
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9.30am BST: Bank of Engalnd consumer credit and mortgage approvals for May
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10am BST: Italy inflation for June (preliminary)
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1pm BST Germany inflation for June (preliminary)
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8pm BST: ECB president Christine Lagarde speech
