Pensions, gender pay gap, sterling and mortgages

The pay gap begins as soon as women start working and is at its greatest when a woman turns 50, with female employees cumulatively £85,040 worse off than men over the next decade, according to TUC analysis of figures from the Office for National Statistics. The TUC analysis shows that the gender pay gap widens steadily from 9.1 per cent for 18-year-olds to 25.9 per cent for women in their 50s and then falls slightly to 22.8 per cent for those in their 60s. Tesco Marmite supplies were being restored to Tesco stores on Wednesday night after a consumer and political backlash against the product’s manufacturer, Unilever, The Times reports. On Tuesday, the supermarket withdrew Marmite and dozens of other Unilever products from its website after the company demanded a 10 per cent price increase because of the rising cost of imports following sterling’s slump to a 31-year low. But after a day of recriminations, including the Government appearing to side with Tesco, Unilever announced an end to the dispute. Sterling Comments from the president of the European Council Donald Tusk and the French finance minister Michel Sapin have helped push the pound down further today. Tusk said Britain’s only real alternative to a ‘hard Brexit’ is ‘no Brexit’. Speaking in Brussels, he warned that the EU would not compromise on its insistence that freedom of movement will be a condition for Britain’s access to the single market. Sapin then said this morning that some US banks are already looking to move their operations out of London in favour of the continent. Mortgages

Homeowners and prospective buyers are being warned not to be seduced by eye-wateringly low two-year mortgage rates, as changes in the British economy could mean they could end up costing them in the long run.

Thisismoney reports that mortgage rates have fallen to their lowest ever level since the UK voted to leave the European Union in June, with the cheapest deal available now fixed at less than 1 per cent for two years.

But after months of lenders slicing their rates to entice homeowners to remortgage, John Charcol, a firm of mortgage brokers, is warning that unless there is a good reason to take a short-term deal, borrowers could be safer fixing for longer.

Children

Millions of parents are continuing to fund their adult children’s lifestyles after they’ve flown the nest by paying bills such as TV subscriptions and car insurance, according to research from Freesat.

The study of ‘empty-nesters’, all of whom have children who have left home, found more than one in ten paid for their grown-up kids’ TV subscriptions.

The research follows figures widely-circulated this year, which estimated that the so-called Bank of Mum and Dad would lend £5 billion in 2016 to help children on to the property ladder. According to the Freesat study, a further 18 per cent of empty-nesters paid mobile phone bills for their adult children, while 12 per cent covered the cost of food shopping.