Mojtaba Khamenei, the country\u2019s newly appointed supreme leader<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe warning from the chancellor came as:<\/p>\n
The price of Brent crude oil rocketed to as high as $119.50 on Sunday, a jump of 29%.<\/p>\n
The Bank of England is now expected to keep interest rates on hold through 2026, with a small possibility of a rise in 2027.<\/p>\n
The prospect of a prolonged conflict and higher inflation also pushed global markets lower.<\/p>\n
The AA said drivers could \u201cconsider cutting out some non-essential journeys and changing their driving style to conserve fuel\u201d.<\/p>\n
Most UK households will be protected in the short term by the energy price cap, but the UK\u2019s reliance on gas from the Middle East makes it especially vulnerable to what amounts to a blockade of the strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world\u2019s liquid natural gas is transported.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s security chief, Ali Larijani, said in a post on X on Monday that safe passage would not be restored \u201camid the fires ignited by the United States and Israel in the region\u201d.<\/p>\n
Analysts have said Iran is hoping that restricting the flow of oil to global markets and attacking energy infrastructure in the region will threaten sufficient damage to the global economy to force Trump to end the US offensive, and bring an end to the war on Tehran\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n
UK ministers are understood to be looking at ways to potentially mitigate the effects of rising costs on energy bills. Speaking in parliament on Monday, the chancellor said the economic impact of the situation in the Middle East \u201cwill depend of course on its severity and its duration\u201d but said the movements seen already were \u201clikely to put upward pressure on inflation in the coming months\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reeves, who spoke to G7 finance ministers earlier on Monday, said the Treasury was ready to support a coordinated release of collective International Energy Agency oil reserves.<\/p>\n
Pressure is growing on the chancellor to go further. The Trades Union Congress said \u201cworking people are now facing a Donald Trump-made cost of living crisis\u201d and said the government \u201cmust stand ready to pull out all the stops and shield households and firms from this global shock\u201d.<\/p>\n
More than 40 Labour MPs in rural seats have said in a new report that people reliant on heating oil face being plunged into poverty. About 1.5m UK homes are off the gas grid and are not protected by Ofgem\u2019s energy price cap.<\/p>\n
The report by the Labour Rural Research Group found that in recent days, some rural households had reported heating oil price increases of up to 117%.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a matter of days since the war began with Iran, we\u2019ve seen off-grid oil prices surge by more than 100%, leaving thousands of UK rural households extremely vulnerable to off-grid energy price fluctuations,\u201d the Suffolk Coastal MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany thousands of families are now fearful that it will be impossible to buy oil to heat their home, and they are now longing for a mild spring. This volatility exposes rural Britain to greater challenges, and pushes more families into rural poverty. We urgently need a rural strategy that includes an energy price cap for off-grid homes.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 40 Labour MPs in rural seats have said people reliant on heating oil face being plunged into poverty. Photograph: Clynt Garnham Energy\/Alamy<\/p>\n
Reeves said discussions would be held on help for people reliant on heating oil and that petrol forecourt bosses had also been called into the Treasury and warned about price gouging.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet me be absolutely clear: I will not tolerate any company exploiting the current crisis to make excess profits at consumers\u2019 expense,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
MPs have begun to privately raise the alarm with the Treasury on how the government is communicating the crisis \u2013 saying they believe Starmer and Reeves should be making it more explicit who is to blame for the unfolding crisis and the potential hit to the cost of living, as well as saying that the government will help with measures to ease the problem.<\/p>\n
YouGov polling<\/a> on Monday found 74% of the public already expect the conflict to have a negative impact on their household\u2019s finances \u2013 including 35% who expect it to have a \u201cvery\u201d negative impact.<\/p>\nReeves told MPs the conflict \u201caffects us all, and we must respond to it\u201d but said she was \u201cclear-eyed\u201d about her response, and that the government had already taken steps to shield the economy from global shocks.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur energy system is now more secure than it was at the outset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict,\u201d she said, saying the UK was \u201cless reliant on and less exposed to volatile international energy prices than we were at the outset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and that is welcome\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Reeves defended her decision to increase fuel duty, which will rise in stages from September this year, the first fuel duty increase in 15 years.<\/p>\n
The chancellor said drivers would still pay less because of the freeze until September but the Conservatives have tabled a motion in parliament seeking to block the rise and force Labour MPs to publicly back or oppose the measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain is likely to be hit by rising inflation because of the US war with Iran, the chancellor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525395,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":["post-525394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}