You can’t have missed the recent press commentary on the new Investigatory powers bill proposed by Theresa May.
Interestingly the 299 page bill completely ignores VPNs. It would seem there has indeed never been a better time to consider using a VPN to secure your traffic if you are worried about potentially being snooped on!
The Stack has more info in this recent article
https://thestack.com/security/2015/11/04/draft-investigatory-powers-bill-vpn-theresa-may/