The Latest Breaking News from Office for National Statistics

Instead of buy-one-get-one-free offers, everyday life now involves carefully comparing prices and feeling increasingly powerless, says Guardian columnist Andy Beckett

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

It is sometimes said of the political Left that it wants everything to be filtered into three categories: free, illegal or obligatory. To which Rishi Sunak says: hold my Mexican Coke. The prime minister's proposal to ban young people from being ever able to legally smoke passed its first Commons hurdle last night,…

The disappointing “miss” immediately sent financial markets scrambling to reassess their projections of the timing of the first move on rates by the Bank of England

UK house prices show signs of stabilization with a modest decline, reflecting economic uncertainties. Regional variations persist.

That’s a little higher than economists had expected

IMF scenario shows how a 15% jump in oil prices would push up global inflation by 0.7 percentage points

The meagre growth, not helped by torrential rain that hammered the construction sector, marks a slowdown from a 0.3% advance in January

UK still stuck in a pattern of slow growth but recession is almost certainly over