Week of 12 October 2026

The government's weekly survey of pump prices put diesel at 200.04p a litre on Monday 12 October. That is the highest figure in the series, which goes back to June 2003. The previous high was 199.52p last week, and before that 199.22p on 4 July 2022. Diesel has now gone up for 13 weeks in a row, and a year ago, on 13 October 2025, it was 142.99p. Petrol was 175.28p, up from 134.81p a year ago, and still below its 2022 high of 191.55p. Fuel duty (a tax charged on every litre) is unchanged at 52.95p, and VAT is still 20%. The ONS says transport, particularly motor fuels, made the largest upward contribution to the rise in inflation in August.

Every three months the Bank of England asks banks and building societies how their lending is going. In the survey published on 8 October, covering the three months to the end of August, lenders said defaults on credit card loans increased. A default is a mark on your credit file that appears when a lender closes an account because of missed payments. Lenders expect credit card defaults to increase again in the three months to the end of November. They also said they made less unsecured credit (borrowing that isn't secured on something you own, like your home) available to households, and expect to make slightly more available next. The Bank gives each answer as a net balance. For credit card defaults it was 25.7, which the Bank calls an "increase", down from 37.4 in the survey before. The Bank says the results are lenders' own answers and "do not necessarily reflect our views on credit conditions".

In its latest Business Insights and Conditions Survey, which ran from 21 September to 4 October, the ONS (Office for National Statistics, the UK's official statistics body) found that 3 in 10 (30%) of businesses used at least one type of AI (artificial intelligence) technology in September 2026. That is up from 9% in September 2023, when the question was introduced, but broadly stable compared with June 2026. Among businesses with 10 or more employees that use AI, 38% said administrative and clerical roles were the most affected, ahead of creative or design roles at 24%. And 6% said AI had reduced their headcount (the number of people they employ), while fewer than 1% said it had gone up. Among businesses with 10 or more employees, the most used AI tools generate text (21%) and create visual content (19%). The ONS calls these "official statistics in development" and advises caution.