Commenting on the new inflation data for April, Suren Thiru, head of economics at the British Chambers of Commerce, says: "The increase in producer prices may lead to a short-term uptick in inflation over the coming months, but it is likely to be a temporary rise with the rate continuing its overall trend back towards the Bank of England’s 2% target.

"While we think that interest rates will rise again before the end of the year, we would caution against the sort of sustained tightening in monetary policy recently implied by some Monetary Policy Committee members, as it could dampen business and consumer confidence and further subdue UK economic growth.

"Instead more needs to be done to lift the UK out of its current low growth trajectory, including incentivising long-term business investment.”

Chris Johnston
Business reporter, BBC News

House prices fell again in March as the property market continues to cool, with London recording its weakest performance since 2009.

Average house prices in the UK decreased by 0.2% from February to £224,000 - but are still 4.2% higher than in March last year.

In London prices fell 0.7% annually to an average of £472,000, the capital's lowest growth since September 2009, Office for National Statistics figures show.

The ONS said the decline in London can be linked to reforms to stamp duty and the Brexit vote, which has deterred foreign buyers and seen net migration to the city fall.

Image source, Reuters

Business Live asked and you answered - we've had lots of emails about what you think about M&S and its plans to improve its business?

Chris Wharam says: "As a shareholder but also a customer I am astounded by chief executive Steve Rowe's statement 'we need to modernise'.

"M&S needed to re-modernise about 20 years ago and tried to convince everyone that it was so doing."

He says: "Not only are the tills slow at processing transactions, so are the board of executives at M&S in implementing change. M&S will, for the foreseeable future, be playing the game of catch up, only of course in true M&S style, slowly!"

What do you think?

Email us at bizlivepage@bbc.co.uk

Simon Jack
BBC Business Editor

Image source, Getty Images

The marriage of Barclays and Standard Chartered is many ways a tantalising prospect.

Take the new transatlantic Barclays, with a big US and European investment banking business, and a very profitable UK retail and credit card business, and bolt it on to Standard Chartered's Asian, African and Middle East trade expertise.

Not only that, but Standard Chartered's big Asian deposit base would be a source of cheap capital for Barclays investment bank. Voila - an all-singing, all-dancing bank with a truly global footprint.

Read Simon's full blog here.

Image source, Getty Images

The FTSE 100 is trading 50.04 points lower, down 0.64%, at 7,827.41.

M&S leads the risers with its share price up 3.53% at 302.05p

Standard Chartered is also among the biggest gainers, up 1.5% at 807.9p, following a report in the Financial Times, external that it explored a possible merger with Barclays.

Miners were among the biggest fallers, led by Anglo American down 5.1% at £18.28.

The FTSE 250 is down 94.82 points at 21,096.62.

The biggest faller is Dairy Crest which reported a 3% rise in full-year underlying pre-tax profits to £62.3m on sales 10% higher at £456.8m.

However, the Cathedral City and Country Life-owner said that the rising cost of cream had weighed on the cost of making butter.

Dairy Crest also announced plans to raise nearly £70m from investors through a rights issue to expand cheese production. The cash will be used to increase cheese production from 54,000 tonnes per year to up to 77,000 tonnes on the back of soaring demand.

Andy Verity
BBC Economics correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Inflation keeps on coming in lower than expected.

If you strip out volatile items like food and fuel, then so-called “core inflation”, Bank of England governor Mark Carney’s preferred measure, is only 2.1% – barely above target.

From being 90% sure a couple of months ago that a second interest rate rise would have happened by now, the markets now think it’s unlikely before November.

Why raise rates even then?

The thinking now is – inflationary pressures may have abated for now, but the BoE has to look two years ahead.

At the last count (first three months of the year) the average pay rise was 2.9% and it may go higher.

The pound has weakened against the dollar recently. And if higher oil prices, priced in dollars, are here to stay, they are likely to push up the cost of imported goods. The Bank isn’t at all sure the threat from above-target inflation has gone for good.

Image source, Getty Images

The news that inflation is on the way down is "good news for cash-strapped households", reckons Ben Brettell, senior economist at Hargreaves Landsdown.

As we've reported inflation fell unexpectedly to 2.4% in the year to April, while last week job figures showed pay excluding bonuses rising by 2.9%.

"Inflation falling for the third month in a row further dents any hopes of a late-summer rate rise from the Bank of England," says Mr Brettell.

The Bank’s currently thought likely to put rates up in August.

"But it looks to me like 2018 will be another year of the Goldilocks economy - not too hot to stoke inflation and force interest rates higher, and not too cold to induce any panic among policymakers."

Image source, Getty Images

The new mantra at M&S is all about modernisation - and its full-year financial results show exactly why that is needed.

Reader Faye Wilson emailed in to say: "The thing that makes me so impatient when being served at M&S (and this is all their stores) is the very slow till service - not the M&S assistants, the actual system they use in stores is SO slow.

"That is one thing they could improve to help customer satisfaction."

What do you think M&S needs to do to improve? Or perhaps you like it just the way it is?

Email Business Live at bizlivepage@bbc.co.uk

Emma Simpson
Business correspondent, BBC News

Image source, Getty Images

Once again, M&S has posted another set of falling sales and profits. Revitalising this 132 year old business is costing it dear.

What's more striking is the sober message and language that accompanied the numbers.

Marks had become a top heavy business, inward looking and "too corporate" and had lost its appeal to family-age customers. The need for change had become more urgent.

Vast sums have already been spent on a new website and a £200m state of the art fulfilment centre at Castle Donnington under the previous boss.

Eyebrows will now be raised that the new warehouse is already struggling to cope with the demand and that website is too slow and behind the best of its competitors.

M&S still has a mammoth challenge ahead to revive its fortunes.

But at the end of the day, it all comes to down to having the right product, the right availability at the right price.

Closing stores is one of those difficult tasks. For the clothing and home shops that remain, the company has to make sure that there is a compelling enough offer to pull shoppers in.

Image source, Getty Images

While a fall in inflation is good news for consumers's finances and for the Bank of England - whose monetary policy is based on an inflation target of 2% - Kevin Doran, chief investment officer at AJ Bell says: "The recent weakness in the pound and the rising oil price are a concern and could quickly reverse the drop in inflation."

He says: "The jump in the oil price has started to hit petrol pumps, pushing up costs for UK consumers and businesses alike. In addition, the weak pound will be driving up input costs for many UK companies which will ultimately filter through to UK consumers in the coming months."

He adds: "If inflation does increase, UK consumers will once again start to feel the pinch."

In its results statement M&S said one of its stated aims was to make itself "special again". and become "faster, lower cost and more commercial".

To do that it says it's "imperative that we simplify our culture - as this is the only way to drive change right through our business".

Again it doesn't shy away from admitting that mistakes have been made in the past.

"We need to change our organisation, move on from the structure of a single business led by functional directors. This created a top-heavy business that was inward looking and too 'corporate'." It's shifting to a each part of the business being led by its own "integrated management team".

But at Alliance Manchester Business School, John Pal says this is easier said than done. "The recruitment of executives who have worked with Chairman Archie Norman suggest his outward looking view is the one to prevail.

"The claim that M&S is to 'simplify our culture'" is one that will be pored over by many observers.

"Culture Processes and structures can be simplified but culture is something more embedded in the organisation," he adds.

The pound fell against the dollar to $1.3356 from $1.3431 following the release of inflation figures which showed a fall to 2.4% in April.

Image source, Getty Images

Head of Inflation at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Mike Hardie says: “Inflation continued to slow in April, with air fares making the biggest downward contribution, due to the timing of Easter. This was partially offset by the rise in petrol prices.

"Soft drink prices saw their biggest ever rise for this time of year, due to the introduction of the sugar tax. However, many retailers still haven't passed the impact of the tax onto shoppers.

“Annual price growth for goods leaving factories was unchanged in April. However, the cost of raw materials increased, mainly driven by strong rises in crude oil prices.

“House prices continued to fall in London seeing their second annual decline since the financial crisis. However, Scotland continued to see strong annual growth."

Image source, Getty Images

The Consumer Price Index measure of inflation fell to 2.4% in April, according to the Office for National Statistics, compared to 2.5% in the previous month.

Image source, Reuters

Laith Khalaf, senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown spells out just how important online is to success at M&S.

The retailer is, he says, "simply struggling to make progress in a world where a compelling mobile app is every bit as important as a presence on the high street, and considerably less expensive".

Ten years ago the M&S online channel made up just 4% of overall retail sales, today it's 17% and "only looks like heading in one direction".

"Traditional retailers like M&S have been slow to react to the existential threat posed by online rivals and are belatedly trying to make up for lost time," adds Mr Khalaf.

"But things change pretty quickly in retail; M&S was founded in 1884 and is now worth £4.7bn, the online retailer ASOS was founded in 2000 and is now worth £5.5bn."

M&S boss Steve Rowe says that the retailer will expand the Castle Donington ecommerce distribution centre to help hit its target of generating a third of its business from the internet.

The Castle Donington ecommerce distribution centre, which M&S admitted in its full-year results could not keep up with online demand, cost £200m to build and was opened just five years ago.

This was when M&S was run by Marc Bolland and was part of a plan to move the retailer from using 110 smaller warehouses to just three big distributions centres.

It was part of a £1bn investment plan that was aimed at modernising logistics, IT and its systems.

At the time, the then chief executive Alan Stewart said: "The business that we’ve got ... has under invested in this infrastructure for upwards of 20 years.”

Image source, Reuters

Reaction to the M&S results is flooding into Business Live's inbox.

Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com points to the fall in like-for-like sales in both food and clothing and home.

He concedes that some of that is due to lower footfall generally and the weather earlier in the year which hit the High Street .

But, he adds: "Collapsing footfall on the High Street is one thing, but the clothing brand needs a complete refresh to get younger shoppers back.

"Online needs sorting fast and significant investment here is the priority.

"You can boost profits with fewer stores only if you can drive online sales growth and on that front M&S is well behind.

"Food was the great success story so the fall back here is just another worry. Premium offerings from the likes of Waitrose and others have hit hard in recent years."

Image source, Reuters

Let's get some more detail on the Marks and Spencer clothing & homeware sales.

Total sales fell by 1.4%, while like-for-like sales, which strip out the effects of new space, fell by 1.9%.

One reason was that the retailer ditched two clearance sales during the year, meaning 8% less stock was sold off at cut price. Sales of goods at full price were "broadly level".

In the year ahead, M&S seems to be acknowledging that it can't be all things to all people.

It says it will be "building on early improvements in clothing & home by further focusing our ranges and building our style credentials, our offer in Wardrobe essentials and our appeal to family-age customers. We are also investing selectively in value as we buy fewer items in greater depth."

Of course, as we've been reporting over the past couple of days M&S has accelerated its store closure programme.

However, the company also says it's already been "encouraged by the proportion of sales transferred to nearby stores from those which have closed".