Cost of living latest: Major lender to cut mortgage rates; nearly 800 ULEZ crimes reported to police | UK News

By Ed Conway, economics and data editor

Let’s get the actual economic policy out of the way first. It shouldn’t take long.

There were three main bits of news from the chancellor’s speech today.

The first is that the national living wage is likely to be raised above £11 an hour.

This is, to be frank, not exactly a government decision. 

The level will be recommended by the Low Pay Commission in the coming weeks and, on the basis of wage growth recently, they’re likely to suggest an hourly rate of around £11.10 or a bit above. 

All the chancellor is saying today is that he’ll approve their recommendation – which is precisely what everyone was expecting.

The second bit of news is that the chancellor wants to introduce further sanctions on those who are on benefits and show little inclination to look for work.

 Again, such sanctions already exist, but the chancellor wants to “look at the way the sanctions’ regime works”.

The third new measure is a freeze on civil service hiring, akin to the one George Osborne brought in during the austerity years when he was chancellor. 

This wasn’t pre-flagged but generated the most applause of the entire speech.

By now, you probably get the idea. 

Once upon a time, Tory party conference was an important moment for this country’s economic policy. 

It was the forum where previous chancellors – most notably George Osborne – announced new measures which would change the direction of UK plc. 

Those days seem to be long over: in policy terms, day one of Conservative Party conference was, to borrow US jargon, a “nothingburger”.