- 4 hours ago
Panorama - Season 2026 Episode 15 - Iran War: The Cost at Home
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:05the United States and its partners have launched operation epic fury two months
00:12after America and Israel went to war with Iran what's the cost here at home
00:20it's just bunkers we just filled up the van and it's just cost us like just short of 130 pounds
00:26it was a real shock to the system my first initial thought was how am I going to afford this
00:31I've
00:32been traveling across the UK to find out just how big the shock could be oh wow it looks like
00:39it goes on for miles we could do with a period of stability across the world because that's
00:45what's good for business it seems so far away but because it's in such an important part of
00:52the world it impacts us today and hopefully this will not happen but it will impact us a lot more
00:58tomorrow Iran's around 3,000 miles away but the cost is already beginning to hit home
01:18the first time many of us feel the impact of the war is when we fill up our cars jump
01:24in the middle
01:25and then get your belt okay Naomi and her 10 year old daughter Rizia live in Chorley Lancashire
01:32hello Rizia has a serious medical condition which affects many of her vital organs she has regular
01:42hospital appointments more than 30 miles away so the family's van is crucial to them well it's just
01:49bonkers we just filled up the van and it's just cost us like just short of 130 pounds that how's
01:55that
01:56doable to just carry on you know like filling up filling up your van and you know each time
02:04okay okay okay Naomi says the family's spending around 30 pounds more a week on diesel since the war
02:12started what are you going to do as a family in terms of preparing yourself for whether things could
02:17even get more expensive as the year goes on I don't want my children to see that you know
02:24we struggle maybe because we have to go to hospital appointments I don't want the children to see how
02:30worried we are because for us it's not an option it is scary to think you know what the next
02:37few months
02:37is going to look like if fuel carries on rising um yeah it's scary the cost of diesel has risen
02:4735 percent since the war began at the end of february petrol is up 19 percent
02:59it's all because of the standoff in the strait of hormuz the narrow waterway off the coast of iran
03:06in normal times around a fifth of the world's oil trade flows through it
03:12after us and israeli strikes iran retaliated in part by threatening shipping in the straits
03:20there's now a fragile ceasefire but the strait remains effectively closed
03:28so when you suddenly close the strait you cut off the supply of some really important commodities
03:39but also the oil producers have nowhere to store their oil their gas if they can't get it out so
03:47what
03:48do they do they shut down production and when you shut down production it's not like turning a light
03:54switch on and off it takes time to restart it businesses up and down the uk are also feeling
04:04the effects of rising fuel costs this haulage firm in wiltshire runs a fleet of 85 trucks transporting
04:12everything from tinned peaches to garden furniture it has 140 employees
04:20we handle on the site here around 500 deliveries a day so the international fleet go all over europe
04:29the fleet runs on diesel how much diesel are you putting into this this tank here 710 liters and just
04:37on the other side on the same vehicle another 320 liter tank on here so yeah over a thousand liters
04:42of
04:42diesel thousand liters how much is that going to cost today somewhere in the region excluding about about 1500 pounds
04:55toby's monthly diesel costs have shot up from around 260 000 pounds to 340 000 pounds
05:03that's a rise of around 80 grand i've never seen it jump like that before never toby's firm passes those
05:12extra diesel costs onto its clients nobody likes telling the customers they got to pay some more money
05:19for for what we do for them every week um you know essentially every friday we send them an email
05:24saying
05:24your costs are going up again next week and it's not a very nice message to deliver
05:27um but unfortunately it's an essential one for us
05:36and it's not just diesel toby's also had to cope with increased costs for oil and tires he fears
05:44what could happen if the standoff in the strait of hormuz drags on the most significant fact will be if
05:51we start seeing fuel shortages across the country that will then realistically have an impact upon
05:57goods delivered to supermarkets follow one of toby's trucks out of the depot
06:05and it's clear the economic impact of the war is rippling across the uk
06:11now the cost of transportation is higher and that gets translated to the supermarket shelf and what you
06:19start seeing is a specific price shock energy becomes a much wider price shock inflation so there's a
06:28there's a ripple effect throughout the chain so if it's expensive for the transport company it goes all
06:34way back down eventually to the consumer correct and the consumer unfortunately is the one entity that
06:41can't pass on the price to somebody else because they are the final consumer so they have a choice consume
06:47things that are more expensive or consume less and both are bad for the economy
07:02so this is our bottling plant um we bottle can and keg in this area
07:16and how much are you producing uh so we do about three million liters a year
07:21mark lily is a customer of toby's haulage firm he runs a family cider business in somerset
07:30as well as the increased transport costs he's facing another problem
07:35this is our pasteurizer so this is run off steam which comes from our boiler down in the boiler room
07:41which is run off heating oil heating oil energy uh prices have more than doubled in price so it's
07:48costing us more than three thousand pound extra per month since the war started since the war started
07:52yeah and what sort of impact is that having on your business uh yeah it's big so far we haven't
07:57passed any costs on to our customers so at the moment we're taking the complete hit um so it's pretty
08:04much wiping out our profit for now so how is that sustainable it's not sustainable we'll have to
08:09put our prices up which will then the consumer will have to pay it so unless fuel prices come
08:14back down then our prices will have to go up
08:19businesses like marks aren't getting government support with the cost of heating oil but the
08:25government is giving 53 million pounds to low-income households who use it
08:32other household energy rates are capped but that caps almost certain to rise in july so the biggest
08:39impact we've seen so far from this war in iran is on disruption to energy infrastructure and the
08:44trading of energy around the world and that will in the end hit all of our energy bills we've been
08:51lucky in the uk that the energy price cap and the system that we have has meant that apart from
08:56people
08:57on heating oil energy bills have actually fallen in april by about 117 pounds but we know now pretty
09:04much for sure that that will reverse when the energy price cap comes in july and it could increase
09:09further by another 100 or 200 pounds
09:16raise come down for your lunch families like naomi's are already struggling to pay their bills
09:24since russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine in 2022 household energy bills have increased by around
09:3114 percent on top of inflation it's just cost us 850 pounds for three months our gas and electricity bill
09:41has just absolutely rocketed rizia's health condition means she needs the house to be kept warm
09:50she also relies on medical devices that use extra electricity rizia has multiple devices
09:57like she has to use a nebulizer sometimes up to three times a day 15 minutes of a nebulizer um
10:04and a feeding pump that has to be on charge or or you know being plugged in overnight so
10:11yeah we're we're starting to see a massive increase you know it's not it's not just like oh it's gone
10:16up a little bit you know compared to a few years ago how's it sustainable for you know survivable
10:25well done if the energy price cap does rise in july the warmer weather means most of us won't feel
10:35the
10:35squeeze straight away what will really matter is what happens to those energy bills in the winter
10:40which if we're honest is much more uncertain only about 15 percent of our energy bills happen in that
10:47third quarter of the year over the nice hot summer but for the winter if they remain high that will
10:52be
10:52a much bigger struggle for families after russia's invasion of ukraine previous governments spent
11:01around 75 billion pounds on help with energy bills including a 400 pound rebate for every household
11:10this time it looks like any government supports will be much more targeted
11:15i can confirm to the house that contingency planning is taking place for every eventuality
11:23so that we can keep costs down for everyone and provide support for those who need it most
11:30what we've heard from the government is that they'll think about targeted support and really
11:35that there's a big picture question here too which is as we go through yet another shock to the economy
11:40what sort of support can we expect from a government what sort of support can a government provide and
11:46i think the government and the public finances have run out of road to be able to simply borrow and
11:52borrow
11:52each time in order to provide this very generous level of support
12:03i'm lucy fleming and i'm the managing director and owner of pm mendy's international limited
12:10the iran war hasn't just affected energy prices it's disrupted supply chains for businesses too
12:19pm mendy sells doors to suppliers builders and online retailers
12:26so i think a lot of people don't realize that a war thousands of miles away in the middle east
12:30would
12:30affect you know a business in in the uk it's really challenging because if we absorb the costs the only
12:38way that that you know that that can go is off our bottom line and off of our profits so
12:41it makes margins very tight and and it's very stressful
12:52lucy imports stores by sea from china and indonesia
12:56they used to come through the middle east but fears about the safety of shipping means the routes had to
13:02change they used to take four weeks to get here from china or indonesia now they have to go around
13:08the
13:08cape of africa to get to us so now you are waiting eight weeks to get containers and then to
13:14have to
13:14pay more for it as well but i think it's one of those things that you keep an eye on
13:17your numbers
13:18and you just look and see right have we done everything we can to be as efficient as possible
13:23and then the last resort is to pass that on to the customers
13:28there's this concept of choke points and choke points are areas where if something happens
13:34if they are choked you start having all sorts of disruptions the world has become subject to more
13:42violent and more frequent shocks that impact these choke points
13:49this is a tenanted farm that we rent the crisis in the strait of hormuz is also having a big
13:57impact on
13:57farmers and that could affect the cost of our food caroline harriet is a farmer in west sussex and a
14:06regional chair of the national farmers union it's a mixed rotation of lots of different crops wheat barley grass
14:15caroline also produces beef milk and lamb for our supermarkets
14:23she relies on diesel to run her farm machinery unfortunately the fuel price increase has come
14:30at a time when we're super busy in the winter you won't be on your land because it's too wet
14:35but in
14:35the spring with these fantastic conditions we've got now this is time for putting our seeds in for our
14:41next crop so yes we'll be using a lot of fuel it's come at a very difficult time for farmers
14:49but that's not all around a third of the world's fertilizer trade that travels by sea goes through
14:56the strait of hormuz and right now hardly any is getting through that's pushing up the price
15:03british farmers are paying for theirs luckily we'd bought the fertilizer that we're using now
15:09last year and that cost us 330 pounds a ton now if we went to buy the same fertilizer it
15:16would be 550 pounds a ton
15:20it's a massive impact for anybody that didn't have it in store that has got to buy it now
15:26and for us going forward our barns are going to be empty of fertilizer we're going to have to buy
15:32some
15:32new fertilizer and we've got to make a decision what are we going to grow this winter what can we
15:38afford to
15:38grow we're halfway through this crop and we've got to feed it so we have no option you can't just
15:45leave
15:45it there because you're not going to have a viable crop at the end of the day what are you
15:51really
15:51worried about going forward long term if things don't improve farmers global volatility the uncertainty
15:58we're in ireland we've got shy on 70 million people to feed we need to know that we've got
16:03stocks of wheat and barley we need to grow good crops and we need to ensure that we have that
16:09fertilizer
16:10at a price which means that the end product we get a profit on
16:17for now many farmers are taking the hits and absorbing price rises for things like fuel and fertilizer
16:24but unless costs reduce they may well have to start passing them on and the price of food could rise
16:41the energy shocks having an even bigger impact on companies producing crops indoors
16:47this is 50 000 square meters or five hectares we've got four greenhouses exactly the same size on this
16:53site all interconnected the greenhouse growers is one of the uk's biggest producers of tomatoes and
17:00cucumbers john swain oversees three sites including this one in cambridgeshire our whole site produces
17:08about 30 million cucumbers a year 30 million cucumbers a year and we can only manage that because we've got
17:13supplementary lighting in here and there's six and a half thousand light fittings in this block and we
17:19use that to extend the day length to make sure that the plant gets the light energy that it needs
17:23and
17:24enables us to get those really high yields british growers supply around one in five of the cucumbers
17:31and one in six of the tomatoes we eat
17:36because of our climate most are produced in heated greenhouses
17:45oh wow that's incredible it's good isn't it it looks like it goes on for miles it does hundreds
17:54of meters anyway despite investing in the latest green technology to maximize efficiency this company
18:03still has to use a vast amount of energy the bills are enormous our energy costs are in the millions
18:11per
18:11year it's enough energy for a small size town renewable energy can't meet all of the needs here and the
18:19facility relies on gas there's no energy price cap for businesses like this so when the gas price rose
18:26at the start of the war the impact was immediate the day ahead gas price which is a measure of
18:33how much
18:33gas gas costs and how much we'll pay on a daily basis that doubled overnight so that really did scare
18:39us
18:43john now faces a dilemma if the cost of energy rises further can the company still afford to grow tomatoes
18:51and cucumbers we've gone through our most expensive period and the crop is just starting to harvest
18:57now we've got to face a decision if energy costs continue to increase do we stop production at some
19:04point so it's a really hard decision for us to make and extra energy costs in the future might have
19:11to
19:11be factored into the price the company charges so the cost of tomatoes cucumbers going up is a possibility
19:20i think it's a real possibility that the the cost of goods will go up because the costs of energy
19:26have
19:26gone up and energy underpins everything we do and those costs have to be absorbed because nobody wants
19:31to be making a loss because you can't run a business like that when it comes to food prices it
19:40can take
19:40time for us to see the effects in the supermarket one thing we can look at is when there have
19:45been
19:45previous shocks to global food prices it looks like it takes about a year for the full effect of
19:51that to pass through to the price you pay in the shops in the uk some of the latest estimates
19:57from
19:58the industry are that food price inflation could be as high as 10 by the end of this year for
20:02example
20:02so in recent years we have seen food price inflation of five or six percent people will have
20:07noticed that when they've gone to the shops and it could be even more than that by the end of
20:11this year
20:13although the uk gets very little gas from the middle east the price we pay for oil and gas depends
20:20on the global market those prices have risen and that's creating pressure on inflation here
20:28it's just hit 3.3 percent to keep inflation on or around its two percent target the bank of england
20:35can
20:36change interest rates i think the bank of england is going to be in a tough place their aim their
20:42target is to set interest rates to keep inflation at two percent inflation is going to be much higher
20:49than that over the rest of this year i think interest rates might well be going up in the second
20:53half of
20:53this year higher interest rates are good for savers hello yeah good but not so good if you're trying to
21:02get a
21:06mortgage how long have you been here for uh so the five years this year in june iona lives in
21:14mansfield
21:14with her teenage daughter her dog and her two cats when she bought this house she fixed her mortgage for
21:22five years when interest rates were at record lows that deal's ending and while she knew her payments
21:29would write the best deal she's been offered will cost much more than she'd hoped how much are you
21:36currently paying for your mortgage and how much will you be paying so it was um a bit of a
21:41shock
21:41because the poor the payment went up from 720 pounds a month to a thousand and twenty a month saw
21:48quite a
21:48big increase 300 pounds a month wow what was your reaction uh gobsmacked i i always expected that it
21:57would increase anyway because you know there's no when i did get the mortgage and initially it was
22:02a very low rate that was on but initially it was a massive shock i think because it happens so
22:10far away
22:11i probably didn't appreciate at the time how much you know what is happening thousands of miles away
22:17would have a direct impact on my life and my family's life
22:24iona now says the rise means she's looking at ways she can cut back in the future
22:30i guess i'd be changing my shopping habits this is making me rethink everything from top to bottom
22:35just to make sure because my priority is keeping a roof over my head and my daughter's head as well
22:44the average interest on a five-year fixed rate mortgage is now 5.7 percent up from 4.95 percent
22:52before the war began we've already seen mortgage rates rise pretty sharply and the availability of
23:00mortgage products has been cut back and markets are pricing in the prospect that the bank of england
23:05will be raising interest rates in the next few months that means the households who are looking to
23:10refix their mortgage face substantially higher costs than they would have expected previously
23:16earlier this year the uk's economy looked to be turning a corner but the conflict means that's now
23:23under threat growth here could be hit harder than in other major economies so there are two ways in
23:30which the uk is particularly vulnerable one is how we heat our homes we have a much higher gas usage
23:35than
23:35other countries and gas determines the cost of our electricity too for more of the time than than
23:40lots of other countries that makes us particularly exposed to that gas price shock and then the
23:45second is inflation hasn't got back to target and that means a shock to prices is even harder for the
23:51bank of england and the government to deal with the international monetary funds already cut its forecast
23:58for uk economic growth this year from 1.3 to 0.8 i think they're correct and the forecasts are
24:12sobering
24:12every problem you're worried about gets worse if we have lower growth so you're worried about being taxed
24:20more you will be taxed more if you're worried about public services then government will find it harder to
24:25afford these public services if you're worried about interest rates a low growth economy tends also
24:33to be high inflation economy which tends to push up interest rates and therefore borrowing costs
24:40so if we lose the ability to grow yet again because of this external shock then you will have all
24:47our fragilities
24:49are magnified
24:54this is the third global economic shock in six years after covid and the ukraine war
25:02so far the good news is it looks like this crisis is somewhat smaller than some of the huge crises
25:08we've seen over the last few years the bad news is that it comes on top of those crises and
25:13that means
25:13both for families and for the government we're in a much less resilient place to deal with it
25:20we've got to be more prepared to deal with such shocks rather than just assuming that they don't happen
25:26that means the public finances have to be run with more buffer room and probably households and
25:31we've got to be able to be able to cope with adverse circumstances than previously
25:47right now the fragile ceasefire between the us and iran is holding but the tense standoff in the strait
25:54of hormuz continues iran still threatening ships in the strait and the u.s navy's blockading iranian ports
26:03and stopping and even boarding some ships photo vessel majestic x we intend to conduct the boarding of your vessel
26:14crucial supplies of oil and fertilizer still aren't flowing and even if the strait were to open tomorrow
26:22it would take time for them to get moving again unfortunately we have not seen the worse
26:29we're still gonna see things get a little bit worse before they get better certain production sites
26:35are damaged you can't simply go back to where you've come from it takes time to re-establish normal
26:46that means back in the uk everyone from mortgage payers to tomato growers to shoppers may have
26:53many more months of uncertainty and of trying to cope with rising prices it is a worry i'm thinking
27:00constantly about how i can save money and and pinch pennies and you know maybe do things differently as
27:06well i think you have you just have to adapt i don't have any other choice i've got a kids
27:11i've got
27:11animals so you have to adapt we could do with a period of stability across the world because that's
27:20what's good for business it's vital that farmers can have long-term stability and resilience because
27:28this week this isn't sustainable for the long term it's constantly changing i think last week alone
27:35i had five different suppliers put the prices up it's particularly stressful because margins over
27:40the years have been coming down and down they're squeezed already but i have a warehouse full of
27:44doors and hopefully it's just a short-term storm that we can ride however long the storm lasts
27:52we're likely to be feeling the effects for many more months to come
28:00coming up on bbc one seconds away from a devastating fraud over the phone the scam interceptors on the case
28:09next
28:22is
28:24you
28:25you
28:25you
Comments