Category: 3. Business

The UK is at risk of losing its status as a major manufacturing centre after a sharp rise in energy prices that has forced about 40% of businesses to cut back investment, according to a report by the CBI and Energy UK.

In a stinging message to ministers, the report said British businesses – from chemical producers to pubs and restaurants – were being undermined by a failure to cap prices and upgrade the UK’s ageing gas and electricity networks.

A far-reaching review of outmoded regulations that govern the sale and supply of energy is also needed to spur investment and boost economic growth, the report said.

Energy UK, which represents more than 100 electricity generators and retailers, said business electricity costs remained 70% higher than before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while gas prices were 60% higher.

A survey underpinning the report found that almost 90% of firms have seen energy bills rise over the last five years and four in 10 had reduced investment as a result.

Without a reduction in energy bills, “the risk of job losses, production cuts, plant closures and offshoring will increase,” the report said.

The CBI and Energy UK said ministers needed to join forces with industry to conduct a comprehensive review of the UK’s energy needs and how they can be met during the transition to net zero.

A taskforce made up of researchers from both organisations and industry groups will consider how reforms could reduce prices and improve the efficiency of the gas and electricity networks.

The aim is to persuade ministers that initiatives to improve the UK’s energy system have not gone far enough, leaving the UK in danger of widespread deindustrialisation.

The UK has some of the most expensive industrial energy prices in the developed world. They are almost two-thirds above the median of International Energy Agency (IEA) countries and the highest among G7 members.

As an indication of the impact, figures covering 2025 show the UK’s trade in goods slumped to its worst performance on record. Britain reported a £248.3bn deficit for goods – £30.5bn more than the previous year.

The Office for National Statistics said the widening gap was only partly filled by a £192bn surplus in services, up £16.4bn from the previous year.

Last year the manufacturers’ lobby group, Make UK, said the government should provide millions of pounds in extra subsidies to prevent the industry from shrinking.

Louise Hellem, the CBI’s chief economist, said industrial sectors were already suffering severe financial pain from the dramatic rise in energy prices.

“You can see it already in the chemicals industry, which has seen several closures,” she said.

Hellem described this year as a “pivotal moment” for the UK’s industrial strategy.

Among medium-sized businesses, UK electricity prices are around double the EU median. Nondomestic gas prices are in line with the EU, the report said, but are considerably higher than the likes of the US and Canada.

“This acts as a brake on ambitions for economic growth. Also, businesses cannot invest in switching to clean energy – even though they know the long-term benefits of doing so – which again undermines one of the government’s key policies,” the report said.

Energy minister Ed Miliband has sought to protect some of the UK’s biggest users of energy. Last year, the government said it would cut electricity prices by up to £40 a megawatt hour for 7,000 “heavy users” to “move the UK from being an outlier to right in the middle of the pack”.

Dhara Vyas, the head of Energy UK, said she was concerned that thousands of businesses outside the ringfence would continue to be hampered by high energy bills.

The government had made significant progress on reducing domestic energy costs, she said. But the help on offer for some industrial users was not only “a sticking plaster”, but it was also being funded by other bill payers.

She added: “Lowering prices for all businesses is fundamental to the UK’s growth story.”

She said the initial report showed “how high energy costs are holding back the UK economy, and the limits of existing support”.

“But our aim will not be just about how to reduce bills. It will be the first of its kind to take a fundamental look at the energy market and the regulations to see how it can become more effective,” she said.

Can anything stop Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR) shares? Since autumn 2022, they’ve surged an astonishing 1,600%. A £10,000 investment back then would be worth £170,000 today.

Mind you, an investor would have had to be brave to invest a five-figure sum at that point.The FTSE 100 aero-engine maker had only just pulled back from the brink after the pandemic grounded global aviation.

Today, buying Rolls-Royce today requires a different kind of bravado. Investors are betting that having worked wonders, the FTSE 100 growth monster can work still more of them. Is that possible?

I’ve wrestled with that question. I’m naturally wary of momentum stocks. I put a small sum in Rolls-Royce in October 2022, then a much bigger one 18 months ago. I braced myself for a fall. Instead, the shares climbed another 175%. Anyone who bought a year ago has doubled their money. Bought one month ago? The shares are up 8%.

It just keeps climbing but so does the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio. I thought it looked toppy when it shot past 50. Now it’s at 65. That’s nosebleed territory, to use the not-so-technical term. Even the forward P/E for 2026 stands at 40. Still a challenge for those nasal passages.

Of course, performance has been exceptional. In 2024, underlying operating profit jumped 57% to £2.46bn. Free cash flow surged 88% to £2.43bn. Management treated investors to a £1bn share buyback.

But sentiment plays a role too. Rolls-Royce has become the standout growth story in the FTSE 100. Success attracts attention, which generates momentum, which attracts more buyers.

Next week (26 February) brings Judgement Day, when Rolls-Royce publishes full-year 2025 results. Imagine lots of hens doing their thing. Then a fox rocks up. That’s what Thursday could look like.

CEO Tufan Erginbilgic has guided to underlying operating profit of £3.1bn-£3.2bn, and free cash flow of £3bn-£3.1bn. These are the key numbers to watch. If Rolls-Royce blasts through them and beyond, and the shares could soar still higher. But if they merely come in as expected or, heaven forbid, fall short, investor groans will be heard from space.

I suspect Rolls-Royce will beat those numbers. We’ll know soon enough. Thursday will be… let’s say, interesting.

So would I buy Rolls-Royce shares before then, to benefit from any bump? Nope. I’ve already got enough resting on this one. Forecasts are cautious, and understandably so. The 18 analysts offering one-year share price forecasts produce a median target of 1,333p. That’s pretty much where the stock stands today.

Mind you, 13 of those analysts still rate Rolls-Royce a Strong Buy, one more says Buy and four say Hold. No sellers. Betting against Rolls-Royce has been a losing play for too long.

Personally, I’m in the Hold camp. I feel like an astronaut strapped into a rocket ship, wondering how this journey will end. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Not sure I’d hop on board now though. Gravity must assert itself at some point.

I can see more tempting growth prospects to consider on the FTSE 100, and they’re a lot cheaper too.

The post Judgement Day’s coming for Rolls-Royce shares – what on earth happens now? appeared first on The Motley Fool UK.

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Harvey Jones has positions in Rolls-Royce Plc. The Motley Fool UK has recommended Rolls-Royce Plc. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

Motley Fool UK 2026

Outside, it’s an overcast and blustery February day in Kent – hardly the ideal conditions for growing tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Yet inside the enormous glasshouses run by grower Thanet Earth, the climate has been optimised to a humid 20C, perfect for the regimented rows of small pepper plants poking out of raised trays.

Growing fresh produce indoors in the south of England year-round requires plenty of energy to provide light, warmth and carbon dioxide. But the site’s energy bills are about to grow too, when a significant increase in electricity standing charges comes into force on 1 April.

“It’s a ticking timebomb,” says Rob James, the technical director at Thanet Earth, which supplies most of the UK’s large supermarket chains. The company estimates the rise in standing charges will add £900,000 a year to its existing energy bill, equivalent to a 5% increase in total tomato production costs. Future increases to standing charges will see this rise to £1.6m in additional annual energy costs by 2028.

“These big charges really impact our profitability, our ability to compete and our ability to reinvest,” he adds.

Growers are warning they will be forced to pass on the sharp jump in costs, which will ultimately be felt by consumers at the checkout. It marks the latest challenge for an industry that has tackled labour shortages, poor weather and changes to post-Brexit subsidies.

At Thanet Earth, the jump in bills will coincide with the start of picking for the small snacking peppers – the company expects to harvest 750,000 peppers a week at the height of the season, which runs to November.

Staff members zip along the paths on powered carts, while next door hundreds of tall tomato plants grow under bright pink LED lights, giving the glasshouse the appearance of a plant disco.

The buildings are part of the UK’s largest glasshouse complex – spanning 51.5 hectares (127 acres) of growing area – producing hundreds of millions of each crop annually. Since the first plants were placed in greenhouses in late 2008, Thanet Earth has grown into one of the UK’s largest tomato growers.

Many of the UK’s other indoor growers – in what is known as the protected horticulture sector – are warning they cannot absorb a 60% increase in standing charges, let alone the further increases expected in the coming years. They say this will force them to raise their prices or stop production, which will further fuel food price inflation.

Standing charges are the fixed daily cost included in bills for accessing the UK’s gas and electricity network, regardless of how much energy is used. After April’s rise, the charges are expected to continue to increase to fund the cost of upgrading the grid and transitioning to a low-carbon energy system.

However, industry bodies representing growers say these charges are unfair and are calling on the government to intervene.

Power-hungry industries – including steel, chemicals, cement and glass – that are classed as “energy intensive users” receive support with their energy bills, exempting them from the increase in charges. However, this did not include food producers.

The British Tomato Growers’ Association (BTGA) and the Cucumber and Pepper Growers’ Association (CPGA) blame what they call the outdated system of standard industrial classification (SIC) codes that categorise businesses according to their economic activity.

The associations say growers are not considered manufacturers and remain locked out of the support scheme, despite operating with the same energy intensity as some of the sectors that receive a discount.

Under the “British Industry Supercharger” scheme, introduced in 2024 by the previous Conservative government, a series of measures was launched to bring energy costs for “key industries” in line with other major economies. However, this did not include food producers.

That decision came despite grower complaints over unfairness in the energy system, exemplified by botanical gardens with glasshouses receiving support, while food producers do not.

“These are eye-watering numbers for these individual businesses and they can’t absorb it,” says Simon Conway, the chair of the BTGA.

“The costs will have to go into food inflation. In government spending it isn’t a lot of money, but to these individual businesses it’s a case of: ‘Stop all investment and can we survive?’ It’s that serious.”

Soaring energy bills are just the latest challenge to hit growers and farmers at a time of rising costs, falling wholesale prices for commodities, including dairy, and concerns about food producers’ profitability. It is against this backdrop that farmers will attend the annual gathering of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) in Birmingham on Tuesday.

Conway and other industry representatives have sounded the alarm to ministers and the energy regulator, Ofgem, warning them about the impact on domestic production of fresh produce in a world buffeted by volatile weather and geopolitical tensions.

During the coldest months of the year, British retailers rely on imports of many fruit and vegetables from countries including Spain and Morocco, or the large glasshouse complexes of the Netherlands.

Devastating winter storms and flooding in Spain and Morocco have badly affected many growing areas and destroyed crops, exposing the fragility of global food supply chains.

However, despite the impending cliff-edge at the start of April and Keir Starmer’s acknowledgment, reflected in the Labour manifesto, that “food security is national security”, many growers feel the government has not been acting with the requisite urgency.

In Kent, Thanet Earth’s seventh glasshouse has just been completed, a project that cost £25m, and it will be planted up in the coming days.

The UK currently only covers 15% to 20% of domestic consumption of fresh produce such as tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Thanet Earth believes there is a market for homegrown crops and had planned to apply for outline planning permission for a further two glasshouses, but has currently paused the process.

“It’s frustrating to make a £25m investment and then face higher costs. Plans to grow further have now been called into doubt,” James says. He fears higher energy bills will also put British growers at a disadvantage compared with their Dutch counterparts.

“We are not after subsidy or money, just relief from the charges,” he adds.

The hike in bills is particularly bitter for Thanet Earth as it is a net exporter of energy. The company burns gas to generate electricity, and uses the by-products of heat and CO₂ for growing its crops. Most of the electricity it creates is exported to the grid – enough to power 35,000 homes. The company employs about 260 people, but can have up to 900 working on site during seasonal peaks. It made a pre-tax profit of nearly £3m on sales of £164m in the year to April 2025, according to the most recent accounts filed with Companies House.

Growers associations say they accept that businesses and households are all required to fund upgrades to the grid, but caution this is heaping more cost on operators, even those who have invested in renewable energy.

A government spokesperson said: “Fruit and vegetable growers have an important role to play in our mission to drive economic growth and horticulture will be supported as a priority growth sector by our new farming and food partnership board.”

They added that investment in energy infrastructure would help to get more renewables on the grid, end reliance on fossil fuels and bring down bills.

The government has previously committed to looking this year at the businesses that qualify for the supercharger scheme to ensure support is directed at the most energy and trade intensive sectors of the economy.

The word “bitcoin” or any other mention of crypto will get you banned from the OpenClaw Discord. Not for spam, not for shilling, but just for saying it.

Peter Steinberger, the Austrian developer behind OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent framework that has surged past 200,000 GitHub stars since its release in late January, has enforced a blanket no-crypto rule on the project’s community server.

A user who recently mentioned bitcoin in passing — in the context of using block height as a clock for a multi-agent benchmark, not promoting a token — was blocked immediately.

Steinberger was clear about the ban in a follow-up reply to the X post.

We have strict server rules that you accepted whe you entered the server. No crypto mention whatsoever is one of them, he said.

The rule comes after what happened in late January, when crypto nearly destroyed the project from the inside.

The trouble started after AI powerhouse Anthropic sent Steinberger a trademark notice over the project’s original name, Clawdbot, which the AI company argued was too close to Anthropic’s own “Claude.” Steinberger agreed to rebrand.

But in the brief seconds between releasing his old GitHub and X handles and securing the new ones, scammers seized both accounts and began promoting a fake token called $CLAWD on Solana.

That token hit $16 million in market capitalization within hours. When Steinberger publicly denied any involvement, it crashed over 90%, wiping out late buyers. Early snipers walked away with profits, and Steinberger was left fielding harassment from traders who blamed him for not endorsing the token.

“To all crypto folks: please stop pinging me, stop harassing me,” he wrote on X at the time. “I will never do a coin. Any project that lists me as coin owner is a SCAM.”

“You are actively damaging the project.”

Security researchers at blockchain firm SlowMist and independent auditors found hundreds of OpenClaw instances exposed to the public internet with no authentication, partly because the tool’s localhost trust model breaks when run behind a reverse proxy.

Separately, a researcher found 386 malicious “skills” — add-on scripts for OpenClaw agents — published on the project’s skill repository, many targeting crypto traders specifically.

Steinberger has since joined OpenAI to lead its personal agents division, with OpenClaw moving to an independent open-source foundation. The project is thriving.

But the crypto ban on Discord stays, leaving a scar from a weeks-long episode that showed how fast speculative token culture can engulf a legitimate software project and nearly bury it.

Some people who are considering starting a new savings habit or building on an existing one as the new tax year approaches in April may be able to get a clearer idea of their savings goals by grouping them into separate “pots”, according to an investments expert.

Lucy Smith, an investment manger at Killik & Co, said that a “helpful” way to consider structuring savings can be to consider building an emergency pot of cash that can be accessed easily if needed.

Some people may want to aim to build up at least three months’ worth of spending in it, depending on their own circumstances and what they feel comfortable with, she said.

A “planned spend” fund could be a second pot, with money put by for foreseeable goals in the next few years, such as a home purchase, a big holiday or any other life expense.

Longer-term “lifetime” savings that will not be needed for around five years or more could be put into a third pot, Ms Smith suggested.

She said: “This is your pot of money where investing can play a key role as you can benefit from compounding over time since it is not money that you will need over the next few years.”

Ms Smith also said a consistent approach can help with building a savings habit.

She said: “One of the simplest ‘set and forget’ behaviours is using your Isa allowance regularly.”

Some savers might feel comfortable gradually moving from a cash Isa towards a stocks and shares Isa over time, she said.

Investments may potentially grow more strongly than savings held in cash over time. But the value of stocks and shares can go down as well as up, so people may want to consider the risk level they feel comfortable with.

Ms Smith said of the potential for funds to fall in value: “It’s worth considering whether this is something that would keep you up at night or if you would see it as a buying opportunity – and what you’d do if markets fell further.”

Staying diversified when investing and avoiding “putting all your eggs in one basket”, may be a useful goal, she said.

Ms Smith added that some people may want to get financial advice.

The Government-backed MoneyHelper website also has tips and tools to help people build savings.

Ms Smith said: “The type of investment habit you build can also be adapted by life stages, such as buying a home, starting a family or approaching retirement.”

She said of building wealth: “It’s about developing good habits over time.”