Latest / Best of Business / Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on energy bills going up as a result of the Iran war

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Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on energy bills going up as a result of the Iran war · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Fourteen away from seven, Let's go to the UK. Gavin
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  Speaker 2: Gray is our correspondent Logevin hither have that thirteen percent
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  Speaker 2: increase in the household energy bills is huge?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, and it's on top of of course already big bills.
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  Speaker 3: So what it does mean in New Zealand dollars is
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  Speaker 3: the annual amount of gas and electricity a household will
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  Speaker 3: pay this year is going up by five hundred New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand dollars in the year. That means an average annual bill.
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  Speaker 3: That's an average annual bill is four two hundred and
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  Speaker 3: seventy New Zealand dollars a year. Now, the cap that
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  Speaker 3: is imposed by the government does mean that's going to
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  Speaker 3: be lower than it would otherwise be. It affects millions
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  Speaker 3: of homes of variable tariffs in England, Scotland and Wales,
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  Speaker 3: but suppliers are warning it could go even higher at
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  Speaker 3: home in the cold winter months without a resolution thousands
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  Speaker 3: of miles away, by which of course it means in
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  Speaker 3: the Strait of horr Moves and the war with Iran
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  Speaker 3: energy costs have been absolutely rocketing since then. We all
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  Speaker 3: know that a fifth of the world's oil and gas
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  Speaker 3: is carried through the Strait of hor Moves and it's
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  Speaker 3: been blocked for weeks, and even if it were to
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  Speaker 3: be unblocked today, these problems would still exist for some
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  Speaker 3: time to come. So in total, there's a twenty four
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  Speaker 3: percent increase on gas bills, but five percent on electricity bills.
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  Speaker 3: It evens out for an average family is an increase
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  Speaker 3: of thirteen percent. But I'm afraid it's really something that
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  Speaker 3: you know, even the Americans, I say even the Americans,
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  Speaker 3: but many of those now really pulling away from supporting
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  Speaker 3: Donald Trump and his action in Iran, as it's hitting
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  Speaker 3: the gas prices there, hitting the oil prices there, as
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  Speaker 3: it has around the world. But this is what it's
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  Speaker 3: doing here in the UK at the time where household
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  Speaker 3: bills are already squeezed.
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  Speaker 2: How do you reckon? Tony Blair is right in his
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  Speaker 2: criticism of Serkistarma in that essay.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think it's a very very interesting intervention by
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  Speaker 3: our former prime minister on our current prime minister. He
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  Speaker 3: is saying that unless basically there is a policy about
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  Speaker 3: there's a debate rather about policy, then all this talk
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  Speaker 3: of a change of leadership is irrelevant. He says, we
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  Speaker 3: really have no coherent plan for the country currently and
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  Speaker 3: introducing policies that have actually held business back. It's a
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  Speaker 3: highly critical essay he's written in total some five six
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  Speaker 3: hundred words, and it's his first in depth critique of
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  Speaker 3: Sakir's government. Why does it matter? Well, so Tony Blair
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  Speaker 3: is still really revered as a former leader who was
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  Speaker 3: good for business, and he said, look in the one
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  Speaker 3: measure that the Prime Minister in the current government has
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  Speaker 3: overhauled new workers' rights laws, making it less attractive to
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  Speaker 3: hire new workers. He's phased out the British oil and
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  Speaker 3: gas industry when we still don't have enough renewables to
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  Speaker 3: support ourselves completely. And also in increase the minimum wage,
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  Speaker 3: giving an above inflation pay rise to those on the
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  Speaker 3: minimum wage, meaning no wonder businesses are reluctant to take
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  Speaker 3: on new staff, particularly young new staff, because it's so
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  Speaker 3: expensive to hire them, but then it's so expensive to
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  Speaker 3: pay them and even more expensive to pay them off
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  Speaker 3: if they claim that they've been sacked for some reason
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  Speaker 3: that they don't agree with so yeah, the Prime Minister
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  Speaker 3: saying having any kind of a leadership election is completely
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  Speaker 3: pointless because if the government doesn't know where it's going,
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  Speaker 3: what are we all voting for?
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  Speaker 2: I suppose he's probably right.
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  Speaker 1: Now.
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  Speaker 2: What do you think of Ferrari's new electric car.
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, I am not particularly into cars. I leave
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  Speaker 3: it to the so called experts, but this new car,
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  Speaker 3: called Light in British or English as it were, but
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  Speaker 3: actually Luce I think in Italian, has really drawn people
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  Speaker 3: from different sides of the political argument, as it were,
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  Speaker 3: over motoring. Some have described it as straight to the
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  Speaker 3: junkyard trash, so very uncomplimentary. Others have called it an
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  Speaker 3: absolute masterclass in design. Well, I'm afraid the shares didn't
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  Speaker 3: like it. They fell more than eight percent on Milan
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  Speaker 3: stock Exchange and by over five percent in New York.
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  Speaker 3: Ferrari shares have dropped by a third over the past year,
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  Speaker 3: but that mirrors a wider slump across luxury brands. What's interesting,
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  Speaker 3: Heather about this is that while Ferrari's going out all
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  Speaker 3: on this new sports car, which incidentally is very different
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  Speaker 3: because it actually is a five seater, very different from
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  Speaker 3: the usual two seater, that it has grastfully costing one
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  Speaker 3: million New Zealand dollars. What's interesting, of course, is it's
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  Speaker 3: plunging into this new product at the same time as
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  Speaker 3: many other luxury sports companies are. Sports car companies are
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  Speaker 3: pulling out Lamborghini a band and its plans to launch
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  Speaker 3: all electric vehicles, Germany's Porsche are scaled back its EV plans,
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  Speaker 3: and Western carmakers complain in they're facing into competition from
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  Speaker 3: Chinese carmakers. So whether Ferrari's time this very well or
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  Speaker 3: very badly is something I would leave the experts and
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  Speaker 3: fate to DEI fair enough.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Gavin. We'll talk to you in
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  Speaker 2: a couple of days. Devin Gray, UK correspondent.
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