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Vicky Pryce: business correspondent on Andy Burnham's bid to fix the cost of living amid rising energy prices · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let's get to Vicky Price with the business. Vicky, good morning.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Good morning.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Now, Andy Burnham's got a tough job, doesn't he? He's
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: in Liverpool at the party conference saying we can all
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: hope again, but borrowing costs a problem. Gas, electricity, petrol,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: all higher since the Ukraine war, all within two months
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of him taking office.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And of course, one of the first things he's
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: been saying is how he wants to tackle the cost
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: of living crisis. He's done a few things, but I'm
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: afraid there's quite a lot of concern there coming up because,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: of course, energy prices have gone up since the time
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: he made that sort of promise of reducing the cost
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: of living. He's also got the problem of interest rates
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: being very high. So if you look at what's going
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: on in the bond markets of the 10 year bond yield,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: in other words, the interest rate you have to pay
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: for borrowing for 10 years by the UK is something
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: like 5.3 percent or 5.4 even at times. And what
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: you've got is that in August alone, we actually paid
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: £ 8 billion just to service the debt in one month,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: which is enormous. And of course, if that continues, we're
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: talking about over £ 100 billion a year that will be
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: paid just to service the debt. He's got that problem.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: He's got to convince the markets that he's actually got
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: a plan ahead to contain the debt, if you like.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: But the greatest problem he's got is that inflation is
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: picking up and the markets don't like that. Other countries
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: as well, of course, are facing similar problems, but the
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: UK seems to face even bigger ones than others. So
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: he's got, therefore, a big issue to deal with.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, you've got the EU saying to the Brits, can
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: you please up your tariffs on China?
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: But that's a very interesting thing, because, of course, again,
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Andy Burnham wants to get more growth in the economy.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: And one of the things he wants is more trade,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: more investment. The Chinese are investing in the UK. The
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: last thing you'd want is to make the trade relations worse.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: But Europe, of course, on which we depend quite significantly,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: is saying that we're not going to be using UK
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: products in our supply chain, and we're not going to
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: include UK in the procurement practices that we've got, unless
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the tariffs that they charge against all countries, including China,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: are the same as the ones we charge in the EU.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: And of course, just on cars alone, the EU charges 45%,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: the UK, nothing at all. And if that continues, of course,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: first of all, this huge amount of dumping going on, well,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: at least a lot of exports diverged to the UK.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: And second, The EU cannot really allow that because whatever
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: goes back into the EU from the UK will have
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: different tariffs and that already have applied to them. And
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: that's a real problem for them.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Vicky, thank you very much. Vicky Price, our business correspondent
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: out of the UK.