The Bank of England kept interest rates on hold on Thursday but warned they might have to go up if the Iran war drags on, while predicting British inflation will top 4% early next year, Reuters reported. The BoE's Monetary Policy Committee voted 6-3 to keep rates ‌at 3.75%, in line with July's vote. In a surprise, the committee also paused its sales of government bonds for ‌six months and it began a longer-term overhaul of how it shrinks its debt holdings.

Housing associations entered a moratorium with the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) due to potential insolvency five times since 2022, Inside Housing reported. A moratorium is automatically triggered by ‘insolvency events’ which threaten a provider’s viability, such as a winding-up petition, and its purpose is to create a period of time to seek a solution in order to protect the social housing assets. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request submitted by Inside Housing found that a moratorium has been triggered at the RSH five times since 2022-23.

U.K. inflation accelerated again in August, keeping price pressures well above the Bank of England’s target ahead of a rate decision on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported. Consumer prices rose 3.1% in August compared with a year earlier, up from 2.9% in July, the Office for National Statistics said Wednesday. The rise marks the highest inflation reading since March, when energy prices were driven up by the outbreak of war in Iran.

Andy Burnham’s government is working towards a state takeover of Yorkshire-based Speciality Steel UK after hopes of a private rescue of the business faded, the Financial Times reported. Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds told MPs on Monday he would seek to “protect jobs” by developing a proposal for the government’s acquisition of the insolvent steelmaker, formerly part of tycoon Sanjeev Gupta’s metals empire.

Subsidence claims are poised to hit £250m between August and November after thousands of homes were damaged by drought, a specialist company has warned, The Telegraph reported. Geobear, a ground engineering business, said that the summer's heatwaves would trigger a surge in insurance payouts because of structural damage caused by the weather. The £250m is not far from the £307m in claims lodged during the entirety of 2025, according to the Association of British Insurers (ABI). Homes in large parts of the country are built on clay soil, which has the highest shrink-swell capacity.

King Charles III of Britain will meet with leaders from major artificial intelligence companies this week in Scotland amid mounting fears that rapid, unchecked development of the technology could lead to a global catastrophe, the New York Times reported. The king will convene leaders from companies including Nvidia, Google, DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as government officials and others, “to discuss how A.I. can be developed and deployed in ways that benefit society,” according to a statement from Buckingham Palace.

U.K. economic growth rose unexpectedly in July following a strong start to the year, with activity continuing to perform strongly despite a rise in energy prices due to the war in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported. Gross domestic product rose 0.4% at the start of the third quarter, following a rise of 0.3% in June, the U.K.'s statistics agency said Friday. The data signals continued strength in the U.K. economy following a solid performance in the first half of 2026.

A slowdown in Britain's housing market appears to be levelling off as measures of buyer ‌demand and agreed sales moved away from recent lows, ‌the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said on Thursday, Reuters reported. RICS said that its house price ​balance rose to a five-month high of -28 in August from an upwardly revised -29 in July, while the net balance for new buyer enquiries rose to its highest since January at -19. "August's results show a ‌market that is gradually ⁠finding its footing, with key activity indicators having become progressively less negative over recent months.

The former land minister of Bangladesh has been targeted by a bankruptcy petition in London’s High Court, after the UK’s National Crime Agency froze his £185 million ($250 million) property portfolio, Bloomberg News reported. Dhaka-based lender SBAC Bank Plc is seeking to place Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, a one-time ally of ousted Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Hasina, into bankruptcy, according to a court filing filed late last week.