MCP Economics Tools

Look up inflation and wider ONS economic series, population estimates by geography, and HMRC tax receipts and National Insurance contributions. Data is sourced from ONS and HMRC and reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Each tool call costs 10 credits. All tools are read-only and idempotent.

Retail sales data available to lookup_economic_data

Pass metric: "rsi" to retrieve ONS CDID J5EK: the volume, seasonally adjusted, all-retailing including fuel index. The imported monthly series begins in 1996 and is revised and periodically rebased. Source: ONS Retail Sales Index, OGL v3.0.

Vacancies data available to lookup_economic_data

Pass metric: "vacancies" for headline AP2Y, or vacancies_b through vacancies_s for the 18 VACS02 SIC sections. The imported monthly series begins in 2001; values are thousands, seasonally adjusted three-month averages. Source: ONS VACS02, OGL v3.0.

Tool	Description	Parameters
`lookup_inflation`	Look up UK inflation data (CPI, CPIH, or RPI) with the most recent observations. Returns percentage values over time.	metric string, required limit integer
`lookup_economic_data`	Look up UK economic indicators — GDP, unemployment, house prices, retail sales, or headline/industry vacancies — over time.	metric string, required limit integer
`lookup_population`	Look up ONS mid-year population estimates by official geography, year and sex.	geography_code string geography_name string year integer sex string
`lookup_tax_receipts`	Look up monthly or financial-year HMRC tax receipts, National Insurance contributions, and administered expenditure in £ million.	head_of_duty string frequency string from_period string to_period string limit integer
`lookup_trade`	Look up HMRC UK trade-in-goods aggregates by month, flow, HS2 chapter and partner country, or regional totals. Suppressed or below-threshold trade uses the HS2 code 'unallocated' so monthly totals reconcile with HMRC headlines.	month integer flow string hs2 string country string regional boolean region string

HMRC receipts data

lookup_tax_receipts covers every monthly HMRC receipts and expenditure column from April 2017 and annual totals from 2006–07. Amounts are integer £ million, provisional observations are flagged, and unavailable [X] cells are omitted. Source: HMRC, OGL v3.0.

Population data: lookup_population covers 2011–2024 UK/country/local-authority all-ages estimates and English regions through 2023. Source: ONS, OGL v3.0. Estimates may be revised; boundaries change; single-year ages and median age are deferred. The tool costs 10 credits and is read-only and idempotent. The area-business-profile prompt now uses it for market-size context.

GDP data available to lookup_economic_data

Pass metric: "gdp" to retrieve the ONS IHYQ headline quarter-on-quarter, seasonally adjusted GDP growth series. The imported quarterly series begins in 1955, uses percent units, and returns periods in YYYY Qn format. Source: ONS GDP quarterly growth, OGL v3.0.

Related Prompts

Prompt	Description
`economic-briefing`	Current UK economic snapshot — inflation, GDP growth, unemployment, and house prices.
`area-business-profile`	Business landscape profile for a UK postcode area — top industries, company statistics, property prices, and economic context.
`economic-dashboard-update`	Update a six-indicator UK dashboard covering inflation, GDP, unemployment, housing, and HMRC exchange-rate context.
`uk-trade-briefing`	Analyse UK goods trade by partner, HS2 chapter, flow and UK region using official HMRC aggregates.

Related Resources

URI	Description
`govdata://economics/inflation/latest`	Latest UK CPI, CPIH, and RPI inflation rates
`govdata://economics/inflation/{metric}`	UK inflation time series (metric: cpi, cpih, or rpi)
`govdata://economics/indicators/{metric}`	UK economic indicator time series (GDP, unemployment, HPI, RSI, or headline/industry vacancies)

View REST API docs for Economics →

Data Coverage

Source	Office for National Statistics (ONS)
Date range	CPI 1989–, CPIH 1989–, RPI 1948–, unemployment 1971–, HPI 1989–, RSI 1996 JAN–2026 JUN, vacancies 2001 MAY–2026 MAY
Updated	Weekly (Monday)
Limitations	Most series publish with a 1–2 month lag; unemployment typically runs around 2 months behind the other series and was 4 months behind at the August 2026 audit.