Welcome to the Money blog, Sky News’ consumer and personal finance hub. Today, we speak to the head pastry chef at Fortnum and Mason, who reveals his favourite supermarket dessert. We also have news of what to do (if anything) to get the warm home discount. Leave your thoughts in the box.
Thursday 14 August 2025 09:00, UK
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Millions of people have been urged to check their energy bills to make sure they get a £150 discount automatically this winter.
Every household where a billpayer claims any means-tested benefit is eligible for the warm home discount.
This covers people in England and Wales receiving:
But if the person claiming the benefit isn’t named on their electricity bill before 24 August, they risk not getting the discount automatically.
What you need to do
As long as your name is on your bill, and you are eligible for the help, you’ll get a one-off £150 discount automatically this winter.
For many people, there won’t be anything to change, but if you have recently moved or changed supplier, your name might not be on your energy bill yet.
Last winter, 96% of eligible households received their discount automatically through this route, making it the easiest and quickest way.
What happens if you miss the deadline?
If you haven’t managed to add your name to your energy bill before Sunday and you are eligible for the help, you will still be able to claim it.
But, instead of the discount being automatically applied, you’ll need to wait to receive a letter later this year.
If you haven’t received the letter before January 2026, then you will need to contact the government.
Pre-pay or pay-as-you-go
If you use a pre-pay or pay-as-you-go electricity meter, you can still get the discount.
Your electricity supplier can tell you how you’ll receive it if you’re eligible. You might get a voucher you can use to top up your meter.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has just been reacting to today’s GDP data…
She said that the figures are “positive” but there is “more to do to deliver an economy that works for working people”.
“I know that the British economy has the key ingredients for success but has felt stuck for too long,” she added.
“That is why we’re investing to rebuild our national infrastructure, cutting back on red tape to get Britain building again and boosting the national minimum wage to make work pay.
“There’s more to do and today’s figures only fuel my ambition to deliver on our plan for change.”
Growth in the second quarter of the year was driven by services, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Services grew by 0.4% in the three months to June, boosted by computer programming, health and vehicles leasing growing.
Construction also increased, while production fell back slightly
ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said: “The economy was weak across April and May, with some activity having been brought forward to February and March ahead of stamp duty and tariff changes, but then recovered strongly in June.
“Services also drove growth in June with scientific R&D, engineering and car sales all having a strong month. Within production, which recovered, manufacture of electronics performed especially well.”
The latest GDP figures are “better news than anticipated”, our business and economics correspondent Paul Kelso says.
In the three months to June, the economy grew by 0.3%, while economists had widely expected a rise of 0.1%.
Looking at the figure just for June, the economy grew by 0.4%, up from -0.1% in May, and still more than analysts had expected.
Monthly figures tend to be more volatile, so quarterly figures are viewed as giving a clearer picture of the state of the economy.
He says Chancellor Rachel Reeves will welcome the more positive figures, but her opponents will be sure to point out that this is still a slowdown from the first quarter of the year.
“What happened at the beginning of the second quarter? The new employment she introduced in the budget came in and businesses have consistently said they have constrained growth,” Kelso adds.
“So while this is better than expected, it’s still tough question for the chancellor to answer.”
By Sarah Taaffe-Maguire, business and economics reporter
UK economic growth slowed as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs hit and businesses grappled with higher costs, official figures show.
A measure of everything produced in the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), expanded just 0.3% in the three months to June, according to the Office for National Statistics.
It’s a slowdown from the first three months of the year when businesses rushed to prepare for Mr Trump’s taxes on imports, and GDP rose 0.7%.
But, it is more than analysts had been expecting, with many predicting it a 0.1% rise.
Caution from customers and higher costs for employers led to the latest lower growth reading.
The latest GDP figures will be released shortly – here’s a quick breakdown of what you need to know…
Basically, GDP is a tool used to assess the size and health of an economy.
It stands for gross domestic product and measures the monetary value of final goods and services produced in the country over a given period.
Generally, if GDP is growing, and inflation is in check, it’s a strong sign that the economy is doing well, with more jobs and better wages available, and people spending more money.
If it’s falling, it signals the economy is doing badly, often bringing with it lower incomes and job cuts.
Governments, businesses and economists monitor GDP growth among other indicators to understand where the economy stands – and where it’s headed.
How is it measured?
GDP can be measured in three ways:
Output is the most often cited of the three, as it is the measure with the best information available to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The ONS, the UK’s largest statistics authority, publishes GDP figures every month – one of only a small number of countries to do so. However, the monthly data is more volatile, meaning the quarterly figures, which cover three-month periods, are seen as more important.
What does GDP not include?
GDP is an important tool, but it’s not perfect.
The International Monetary Fund cautions there are some things that GDP does not reveal, such as the overall standard of living or wellbeing of the country.
It points out that the quality of life can depend on how wealth is distributed among residents, and not just the overall level. Higher output may also come at the expense of leisure time or the running down of non-renewables, it notes.
GDP also excludes any unpaid work, such as childcare or looking after elderly relatives.
One of the best measures of living standards is GDP per capita – which reflects economic growth per head of the population. This also takes into account the effects of migration.
No growth can lead to recession
If GDP falls for successive three-month periods (quarters), the UK is in a technical recession.
During a recession, there’s less money circulating: less money for workers from their employers, less money being spent in shops and restaurants, and less money going to the government in tax from wages to pay for things like benefits and public services.
Every week we interview top chefs from around the UK, hearing about their cheap food hacks, views on the industry and more. This week, we speak to Roger Pizey, head pastry chef at Fortnum and Mason…
A supermarket takeaway dessert I love is… Tesco’s finest meringue nests. I suppose in themselves they’re not really a takeaway dessert, but sometimes I whip something up quickly at home, a DIY Eton mess of sorts. If you add a few punnets of English raspberries and a tub of thick double cream to your shop, you can add a tiny bit of vanilla, break up the meringue and crush the raspberries. Voila!
For a cheap meal out I love…Volare in Bounds Green. It’s a pizza restaurant run by two Spanish sisters inspired by the love and passion of their Neapolitan great-grandfather, who opened his own pizzeria in Argentina in the 1920s. I would order the Prima Vera, which costs £14.95, so you can’t really go wrong there. Fior di latte mozzarella, wild rocket and some Bresaola on a tomato base – none of that white pizza nonsense!
There’s nothing worse than bringing a nice bottle with you to a dinner party… and then the hosts keep it for another occasion.
It’s really tough at the moment… There are lots of restaurants that are going to go under – especially with the rise in national insurance and minimum wage going up, as well as the new tronc system (changes to how tips are handled). The cost of ingredients has also wildly gone up. The quality of staff we have is not as good as it used to be, and from Brexit we lost lots of talent. But I feel optimistic about the 17-year-olds and the younger generation who seem to have a bit of zest and have a real interest in working hard, which is refreshing.
The toughest moment of my career was… When I started at Le Gavroche it was a three-star Michelin restaurant. Albert Roux was still at the helm, and there’s no doubting it was a military operation. If you didn’t shave, you were given a razor. If you were in dirty whites, you were sent home. It would be so busy at Christmas time that you’d have to sleep in the restaurant sometimes – that certainly can’t happen anymore.
The country that makes the best desserts is… Japan is definitely up there. We’ve come on leaps and bounds in the UK, especially with the rise of international influences in our cuisine, and we’ve always had a global perspective on food with so many diverse cultures and nationalities living in the UK. We’ve taken on the French, who I think have been sitting on their laurels recently, and now we’re outshining them!
People’s appetite for sugar is changing… When I started out, Frederic Bau was a big influence. He’s really changed the mindsets of pastry chefs recently, by recreating his classics – but with less fat and sugar. It’s something we can’t ignore, but people’s appetites for sugar is changing – his philosophy was to create the same mouth feel, textures and flavours but with 30% less sugar.
The best place to eat outside of the UK… One year in Spain, I did the Camino de Santiago walk for 30km and for some reason the only thing I wanted to eat was a Chinese meal. When I finished the walk, I went looking for my Chinese meal and instead stumbled across all these amazing local restaurants and was totally blown away. Eating hake and beans, beautiful octopus, fresh seafood, it was glorious.
One less common ingredient that I couldn’t live without is… Fresh Madagascan vanilla from Zazou Emporium. It’s the crown jewels of what we do in pastry. It’s just stunning, you can put it in anything – you can even add it to your coffee. It just gives everything this lift and sparkle that’s very subtle, but you can’t go without it. Good quality stuff and fresh too – that’s where it’s at.
One Fortnum and Mason item I think it’s worth splashing out for… is the black garlic and miso paste from our new range on the third floor of the shop. We have a beautiful new range of infused oils, sauces and nut pastes, which are full of umami flavour and depth, not to mention our shiny new branding too, which looks pretty sharpish. If I’m using it at home, I might deglaze my pan from cooking a pork chop with some wine and the paste to make a good sauce, or it actually goes incredibly well with vanilla ice cream.
Running the gauntlet to avoid MOT fees is costing drivers thousands of penalty points each year.
In what could be a sign that Britons are struggling with the cost of repairs, the number of people receiving points on their licences for driving unroadworthy vehicles jumped 52% between 2023 and 2024, a freedom of information request has revealed.
The data, collected by the RAC, shows 13,109 drivers were caught out last year compared to 8,614 in 2023.
“The steep increase in drivers receiving points on their licences for unroadworthy vehicles is a cause for alarm as it could indicate more drivers are running the gauntlet and driving unsafe vehicles – although it’s also possible more drivers are being caught by the police,” says RAC mobile servicing and repairs team leader Nick Mullender.
Some regions of the UK saw a much bigger spike than others.
The largest rises were recorded in the East Midlands (87%) and central Scotland (50%).
More drivers in Greater London received penalty points for using unroadworthy vehicles than in any other part of the country – 1,765.
Whenever our comments box is switched on, the topic we hear more about than any other is pensions.
It’s a subject people young and old engage with – but the jargon can leave even the savviest Money blog reader scratching their heads.
Explained
Over the last few months, we’ve looked at the pros and cons of the two main options for getting your pension: drawdown and annuity…
One of the most common questions we are asked is why there are two kinds of state pension, depending on your age. Read the answer here…
We suggested at the top of this post that it isn’t just older readers who care about this topic. This post, on how much temporarily pausing your pension contributions could cost you in the long term, was popular…
Another useful post from last year (a few of the figures are slightly out of date, but all the principles still apply) is all the discounts or freebies available to pensioners…
Further reading
A few weeks ago we brought you an exclusive on how a common error by employers could leave women who go on maternity leave out of pocket in retirement…
And earlier this year, we looked at how 2.3 million people are missing out on extra money for their pensions.
A total of 56% of workers who are paying higher or additional rates of tax pay into a personal pension – but 46% of those people do not claim pension tax relief on their contributions, investment platform InvestEngine found.
Read more here…
Finally, it’s not something any of us want to think about, but making decisions now could be crucial to what happens to your pension when you die…
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