UK retail sales slow after January bounce, BRC data shows
By David Milliken
LONDON (Reuters) - British consumer spending lost momentum last month after a bounce at the start of the year, despite households' rising confidence in their personal finances and the broader economy, surveys of retailers and consumers showed on Tuesday.
The British Retail Consortium said sales at its member stores - mostly large retail chains - rose by 1.1% year-on-year in February, slowing from January's robust 2.6% growth which had been helped by post-Christmas discounts.
BRC chief executive Helen Dickinson said the weaker growth reflected low demand for spring fashions as February's weather remained wintry and repeated complaints about higher employer social security and packaging taxes that take effect next month.
"The industry is already doing all it can to absorb existing costs, but they will be left with little choice but to increase prices or reduce investment in jobs and shops, or both," she said.
Upcoming government plans to make it harder to dismiss new employees risked discouraging typical retailers from taking on entry-level staff and should focus instead on existing bad practice by unscrupulous employers, she added.
Separate data from Barclays showed that consumer spending - which covers a wider range of goods and services than retail sales - rose by 1.0% in February, slowing from January's 1.9%.
However, Barclays' survey measure of households' confidence in their own finances rose to its highest since records began in 2015 at 75% - though this partly reflected efforts to save.
Confidence in the wider economy also rose but remained much lower at 25%.
Barclays spending data was based on debit and credit card spending between January 25 and February 21, while the consumer sentiment data was based on a survey of 2,000 people conducted from February 21-26.
The BRC data covered sales made between February 2 and March 1.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US regulators push through last-minute delay to new private fund reporting rules
By Chris Prentice NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. regulators scrambled on Wednesday to extend a deadline for new data reporting requirements for investment advisers to private funds, just one day before they were due to take effect. The rules, adopted by two U.S. markets regulators in February 2024, will require advisers to disclose more information to regulators in a bid to boost the government's ability to spot risks from private markets that have swelled in size in recent years. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission extended the deadline for compliance to later this year in a 3-1 vote on Wednesday, less than 24 hours before firms had to comply. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission also voted in favor of an extension, marking the second time the regulators decided to push back the deadline after previously postponing it in January. "Additional time is required for dialogue with filers, review of the reasonableness of the data demands, and review of the actual utility of the information collected," SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said during Wednesday's open meeting. Private funds have pressed the SEC to review this rule, among others, and have warned the new requirements are unnecessary and costly. The firms now have until October 1, 2025 to comply. The new data, which includes disclosure of events pointing to significant stress within 72 hours, would be accessible to the Financial Stability Oversight Council, which gathers top financial regulators across the U.S. government to monitor systemic risks. Regulators have cautioned for years that growing private markets could pose increasing risks, particularly as they are more opaque and less vigorously regulated than traditional markets. Federal agencies have begun a push to loosen regulations as part of Republican President Donald Trump's agenda since he took office in late January. "The SEC and other regulators, including FSOC, depend on these detailed data to better comprehend when the private markets may be experiencing turbulence that could affect our entire financial system, because these entities generally operate outside our regulatory purview," said Caroline Crenshaw, the lone Democratic SEC commissioner.
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Pentagon cancels procuring M10 Booker combat vehicles due to 'current world events'
(Reuters) -The Pentagon on Wednesday said it would cancel plans to procure M10 Booker combat vehicles that it had agreed to in a 2022 contract with General Dynamics Land Systems "in response to current world events." "The Army will request to reallocate the remaining funds in fiscal 2025 to accelerate fielding of war-winning capabilities and anticipates additional significant savings to be fully realized within the next 18-24 months," the Pentagon said in a statement.
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The Washington Post has a new Opinion editor four months after Bezos touted ‘significant shift'
The Washington Post on Wednesday announced it has a new Opinion editor. The move comes four months after it announced a 'significant shift' to the Opinion page and the departure of its embattled section chief. Adam O'Neal, who currently serves as The Economist's Washington correspondent, will take over as the Post's top Opinion editor, the outlet announced in an X post that includes an introductory video from O'Neal. 'We're also going to be stalwart advocates of free markets and personal liberties. We'll be unapologetically patriotic, too,' O'Neal said in the video. 'Our philosophy will be rooted in fundamental optimism about the future of this country.' The Opinion section won't 'lecture' readers about ideologies or 'demand you think certain ways about policy,' O'Neal said. The stance falls in line with the vision articulated four months prior by the Post's owner, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos also mentioned free markets and personal liberties when describing the section's new mandate, which drew backlash from some staffers — including from Marty Baron, the Post's revered former executive editor under whom the outlet won 11 Pulitzer Prizes — and praise from some conservatives. 'We are going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets,' Bezos wrote in a February X post. 'We'll cover other topics too of course, but viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others.' As part of the February announcement, Bezos noted that David Shipley, O'Neal's predecessor, had been offered the opportunity to continue leading the section under the new directive but that Shipley had 'decided to step away.' Shipley's departure from the Post followed four months of mounting criticism from Post staffers and readers. The storied newspaper drew criticism for its eleventh-hour choice not to endorse then-Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential bid, which led to several editorial board members resigning and more than 200,000 subscribers canceling their digital subscriptions. Shipley also decided not to run a cartoon satirizing the relationship between Bezos and US President Donald Trump from Ann Telnaes, leading to the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist's resignation. Since Shipley's departure, deputy Opinion editor Mary Duenwald has served as interim section chief. No start date has been announced for O'Neal. In a Wednesday email to staffers obtained by CNN, Will Lewis, the Post's chief executive and publisher, noted that O'Neal 'recognizes the importance of ensuring our opinion coverage is relevant, accessible, and consequential for readers who feel underserved.' 'His appointment is about more than just filling a role; it is about connecting our editorial voice to the real concerns and conversations happening across America,' Lewis said. In the email, Lewis similarly championed Bezos' mandate for the Opinion section: He said its new direction is not 'aligned to any political party' but instead presents 'an opportunity for our Opinion section to share the best of American values.' O'Neal's hiring comes just over two weeks after the Post offered voluntary buyouts to Opinion staffers, the Post's video and copy desks and any news employees who have been at the paper for 10 years or more. The buyout offers run through the end of July.