Survey data point to rising consumer confidence

Consumer spending on the high street is increasing as Britons become steadily more confident about their finances.

An analysis of monthly data from Barclaycard suggests that discretionary spending, led by purchases on entertainment and travel, rose by its fastest rate in three years last month.

Separate figures from the British Retail Consortium paint a similar picture of health, with the underlying pace of spending growing at its fastest rate in almost a year.

Chris Wood, managing director at Barclaycard, said low inflation was helping consumers to "loosen the purse strings on non-essential spending in particular, with many taking the opportunity to make the most of an unseasonably fine British springtime".

The two sets of data were gathered over slightly different time periods, meaning that the BRC monthly figures were distorted by the timing of Easter but those of Barclaycard were not.

The BRC reported total sales down 1.3 per cent in April but the three-month average, which strips out the effects of timings, was up by 1.9 per cent, the best rate since last June.

Helen Dickinson, director-general of the BRC, said the figures were a "clear indication that confidence among consumers was slowly improving and that despite profitability being under intense pressure due to changes in shopping habits and promotional activity, retail remains a robust pillar of the economy".

The strong survey data will boost confidence that the unexpected 0.5 per cent month-on-month dip in official figures for March will prove to be a blip.

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On Monday, the Bank of England held interest rates at 0.5 per cent ahead of its quarterly inflation report this week. After a month of purdah, the pre-election period of quiet, city economists are hungry for more detail from Mark Carney, the governor, on how the BoE sees the sturdiness of the economic recovery and the path for future interest rates.

The market is not pencilling in the first rate rise until spring next year, but there were hints in the most recent minutes of the rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee that the first increase could come sooner than expected.

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