The Committee also voted to maintain the stock of asset purchases financed by the issuance of central bank reserves at £200 billion.

The Committee’s latest inflation and output projections will appear in the Inflation Report to be published at 10.30am on Wednesday 12 May 2010.

The minutes of the meeting will be published at 9.30am on Wednesday 19 May.

 Santander has started the rebrand of its Abbey and Bradford & Bingley branches, with 1,000 Abbey and B&B branches to be renamed Santander by end-January.

 The rebranding in the UK is in line with Santander’s policy of operating under the Santander name and brand image in all the markets in which it is present. Since the unified brand was introduced in 2005, Santander has rebranded in all its key markets, including Spain, Portugal, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Argentina.

Emilio Botín, chairman of Banco Santander, said: “This is a historic day for Santander as its name is firmly established on the UK high street.

“When Santander acquired Abbey in 2004, there were some who doubted we could make it a success. Today, there can be no doubts. Over the last five years we have transformed our UK business into one of the most successful banks in the country. The decision to become Santander will put us in an even stronger position the UK.”

If you buy a property in the UK over a certain purchase price you have to pay Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT). This is charged on all purchases of houses, flats and other land and buildings.

If you buy either a freehold or a leasehold property and the purchase price is more than £125,000, you pay SDLT of between one and four per cent of the whole purchase price. If the purchase price is £125,000 or less you don’t pay any SDLT.

See the table below for more detail.

SDLT Disadvantaged Areas Relief

If you buy property in an area designated by the government as ‘disadvantaged’ you may qualify for Disadvantaged Areas Relief. In this case the threshold for SDLT is £150,000.

Disadvantaged Areas Relief did not apply for residential property purchases between 3 September 2008 and 31 December 2009 inclusive. The threshold during that period was £175,000 which is higher than the previous Disadvantaged Areas Relief threshold. You can check the HMRC website to see if the property you are buying is in an area designated as disadvantaged.

The ‘Fairness Index’, produced by the Financial Services Research Forum at Nottingham University Business School, looks at consumer perceptions of fairness with regards to financial services. The Index takes into account a wide range of measures including impartiality, familiarity, courtesy and communication.

The Index found IFAs enjoy by far the highest ratings on overall fairness, with an index score of 84 out of 100, significantly higher than the industry average of 72. When the data is broken down further, IFAs also rate the highest across each of the fairness measurements.

Brokers/advisers were followed by building societies (75), investment companies (73), Life insurers (72), and general insurers (72). Banks (68) and credit card companies (63) received the lowest ratings.

Chris Cummings, Director General of AIFA, commented: “AIFA strongly welcomes these impartial findings on fairness from the Financial Services Research Forum, and believe they provide a strong endorsement of the IFA profession.

“Not only is the profession the most trusted, but it is also regarded as the most fair – this is no mean feat given the recent economic conditions. It also further reaffirms that the public recognises the IFA profession’s core value: ‘The guiding light is to do well by the client’.”