Oil prices climb to fresh highs, UK petrol price hits record – as it happened

Time to wrap up... here are today’s main stories:

• UK petrol prices have hit their highest levels on record, after oil prices climbed further, reaching a three-year high. The increases spell more pressure on households and businesses facing rising cost of living.
• The UK’s national living wage is set to rise to £9.50 an hour for adults aged 23 and over from next April, after the government accepted the independent Low Pay Commission’s recommendation for a 6.6% increase.
• Rising petrol prices will be shrugged off by owners of battery electric vehicles including Tesla’s Model 3. The US firm’s car was the bestselling car across Europe in September, the first time a battery electric vehicle has topped the monthly sales charts in the region.
• UK phone networks have agreed to automatically block calls from abroad that are made to look as if they come from British numbers, to try to crack down on foreign scams.

Meanwhile, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen is currently testifying to UK MPs and peers. She told them Facebook is “unquestionably making hate worse”, and you can follow all the action over on our Politics Live blog with my colleague Andrew Sparrow:

Please join us again tomorrow, when my colleague Julia Kollewe will be at the helm. JP

25 Oct 202110.17 EDT

Georgina Quach

Thousands of retirees are in line for state pension payouts amounting to £60.8m, according to a government checking process between January and September this year.

A new report from the Department for Work & Pensions found 9,491 people were underpaid their state pension by up to £8,628 per pensioner, as a result of calculation errors.

The DWP is facing urgent calls to compensate those affected after the National Audit Office, the spending watchdog, revealed last month 134,000 pensioners were owed a total of £1.053bn, due to repeated errors by the department. The majority of those affected are understood to be women.

Estimates of the total number of underpayments and the forecast expenditure over the entirety of the DWP exercise will be revealed in Wednesday’s budget.

The DWP is under fire for a separate scandal over delays to state pension payments to thousands of new pensioners caused by administrative problems during the pandemic.

25 Oct 202110.15 EDT

Jasper Jolly

Amid soaring petrol and diesel costs, and the introduction of more restrictions or costs for the use of older, more-polluting vehicles -such as the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) which comes into force today in London - drivers across Europe are increasingly turning to battery electric vehicles.

Tesla’s Model 3 was the bestselling car across Europe in September, the first time a battery electric vehicle has topped the monthly sales charts in the region.

Tesla sold 24,600 Model 3 cars during the month, taking a 2.6% market share that meant it outperformed established internal combustion engine models such as Renault’s Clio or Volkswagen’s Golf, according to figures collated by Jato Dynamics, an automotive data company.

However, sales of petrol cars still dominate across Europe because of the lack of affordable battery electric vehicles but there has been a big switch away from diesel because of scandals related to air quality.

You can read Jasper’s story here:

If inflation continues to rise next year above current levels, as many predict, even a 6.6% rise in the national living wage may not make many low earners feel much better off.

The government’s proposals “still fall some way short of a properly calibrated living wage,” according to Dr Mat Johnson, senior lecturer in employment studies at Alliance Manchester Business School.

He added: “The real living wage rate - due to be announced by the Living Wage Foundation next month - is likely to be above £10 across the UK”.

A rise of 6.6% for those on the minimum wage is actually quite modest as inflation is expected to hit 5% early next year - Dr Mat Johnson, senior lecturer in employment studies at Alliance Manchester Business School

Dr Johnson is among those highlighting how the increase in the national living wage may not necessarily offset the cut in universal credit, combined with higher tax and National Insurance contributions.

He added:

A more progressive move would be to harmonise minimum wage rates across age groups. While the adult rate has been lowered to cover 23-year-olds and above, it should be extended to younger adults who face sharp cost of living pressures when it comes to rent, food and utilities.

More reaction is coming in from trade unions, economists and analysts to the increase in the national living wage and the minimum wage from next April.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) said a boost to the minimum wage was vital “in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis”

But the government must set its sights higher. We need a £10 minimum wage now, and we need ministers to cancel the cut to universal credit. This increase won’t come into effect until next spring by which time many household budgets will have been hammered by rising bills and the universal credit cut - Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary

O’Grady is also calling on the chancellor to end the pay freeze for public sector workers on Wednesday in his spending review.

Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), is also disputing the government’s claim that the rise in the national living wage will see low earners £1,000 a year better off.

And the Women’s Budget Group, an independent non-profit which monitors the impact of government policies on women, is highlighting the impact of the cut to universal credit for people with caring responsibilities.

Small business owners also have a view

In other news today, the UK’s largest mobile phone networks have agreed to start automatically blocking calls made from abroad that look like they are coming from a UK number, in a bid to crack down more on foreign scams.

The communications regulator Ofcom, said it had been working with telecoms companies to tackle the “complex problem”.

It said fraudsters have been getting more sophisticated and able to ‘spoof’ numbers of large companies and organisations, so it looks like a call is coming from them when it isn’t.

Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s networks and communications group director, said:

Tackling this complex problem requires a coordinated effort from the police, Government, other regulators and industry. We’ve been working with telecoms companies to implement technical solutions, including blocking at source, suspicious international calls that are masked by a UK number. We expect these measures to be introduced as a priority, and at pace, to ensure customers are better protected.

The announcement comes just days after Ofcom revealed that 45m people in the Uk had been targeted by scam calls and texts over the summer. It added it was particularly concerned about what it called a “significant rise” in fraudulent communication over the past 18 months.

You can read the full story by my colleague Kalyeena Makortoff here:

The UK’s lowest-paid workers aged 23 and over will see their wages rise to £9.50 an hour from 1 April 2022.

The Treasury now says it expects the chancellor Rishi Sunak to confirm the rise in his budget on Wednesday.

The government says this 59p an hour boost means that a full-time worker who earns the National Living Wage will earn an extra £1,000 a year.

Younger people are also getting a payrise. From April people aged 21-22 will see their national minimum wage rate go up by 82p to £9.18 an hour.

The minimum wage for an apprentice is also being increased - moving from £4.30 an hour to £4.81 an hour for an 18 year old apprentice in a sector like construction.

Rishi Sunak, the UK chancellor said:

This wage boost ensures we’re making work pay and keeps us on track to meet our target to end low pay by the end of this parliament.

However some warn that people who work and claim universal credit will end up seeing lower pay increases than they might anticipate.

Meanwhile hospitality firms are warning that higher wage bills may lead to firms hiking prices at venues like restaurants and cafes.

We’re waiting for confirmation from the UK government on how much the minimum wage is going to go up by from April 2022.

The increase is expected to be announced soon, and will reportedly rising by more than 5% to £9.42, from the current £8.91 level for people aged 23 and over.

The move would see ministers accept the recommendations of the independent body, the Low Pay Commission, which has been looking at the possibility of raising it by these levels.

Such an increase would mark an above-inflation increase, but coming at a time when consumers are facing higher energy bills and seeing rising prices.

Ministers will also hope that this increase would offset the cut in universal credit which has also hit low-paid workers.

The chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to confirm in his budget on Wednesday that the government wants the national living wage to move above £10 by the next UK election.

Here’s the full story from our deputy political editor, Rowena Mason:

A quick lunchtime look at the European stock markets which have been climbing slightly again this morning, and holding steady close to six-week highs.

Most European stock indices have inched upwards so far today, led by banking, energy and healthcare stocks. Meanwhile, investors are poised for a full week of earnings reports from some of the world’s biggest companies, including top US tech firms, with Facebook up first later today.

Just before 1300 BST:

• UK’s FTSE 100 is currently up 0.4% at 7,233 points
• Germany’s DAX is up 0.26% at 15,586
• France’s CAC 40 has dipped 0.19% lower to 6,721
• The pan-European STOXX 600 is broadly flat at 472

A busy week of third quarter earnings lies ahead, including results from the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Google parent company Alphabet, and also from financial institutions including Lloyds and Deutsche Bank.

US futures are also nudging higher as investors wait to see Facebook kick off the quarterly round of Big Tech earnings.

Soaring energy prices, supply chain disruption and rising Covid-19 cases are weighing on business sentiment in Germany, just as they have been in the UK.

Catching up on the release of the Ifo institute’s business climate index from earlier this morning, morale among companies in Europe’s largest economy slipped for the fourth month in a row in October.

This combination of challenges is slowing the pace of recovery from the pandemic, pushing down business sentiment. The Ifo reading came in lower than expected and marked the worst level in six months.

Supply problems are giving businesses headaches, said Ifo president Clemens Fuest.

The disappointing October Ifo reading comes as Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, warned of economic growth slowing considerably between October and December.

The Bundesbank expects full-year growth in the country to end up “significantly” below the 3.7% forecast it made in June.

Meanwhile Ifo found that half of all German industrial companies are planning to raise their prices as a result of continuing supply problems, a record high reading for the survey.