Compo's coming

26:51We need a long-term, low-cost energy source to allow us to keep going. Are you seeing your customers change their attitude a little bit then? and you can't necessarily change that price that's on the exchange. Are they reacting to whether it's the high price or the volatility? There's definitely a movement away from primary to recycled aluminium. Recycled aluminium only uses about 5 % of the energy that you use in primary aluminium, but you cannot use recycled aluminium in every single customer product that we supply into in the markets. so uh what does that that mean do you think maybe you you're not passing on those prices yourself but you sort of see what's happening in some of these other industries are there and we've been through this before you know when we look at the chart and we talk about aluminium being at a four year high it's notable it was you know around the time of russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine around that time as well what what industries are most impacted when you see this spike in price I think every industry feels it.

28:03I mean, aluminium is in just about any industry that you can think of. And you can't easily transition to other metals. And usually the products that are built, it's a long qualification period to move from one material to the next. So what does the next few weeks hold for you then, Tom? When prices are this high, and you have those issues with your energy prices, what does that mean you do? If the demand is coming to you because there's been smelters that are offline in the Middle East, how do you actually react to all of this? We just keep supplying as much as we possibly can. Are you at capacity, though?

28:45Are you already doing that? We're at capacity where it makes economic sense for us to make aluminium with our own energy source. but going above that, the energy prices still outweigh the benefit we would get if the current prices over the summer, it would add another$1 ,800 onto our manufacturing cost and we're not seeing that level of price swing in the markets. Can I just finally ask you, you mentioned that$1 ,800 before, just explain again what that is for. It's an extra$1 ,800 cost on what? so if we buy in energy to make one ton of aluminium we need 13 megawatts of it and the current price for a megawatt of energy if i was to buy off the market in june is 103 pounds so if you multiply that by the 1.335 dollars it brings in round about the 1800 dollars per ton just for energy alone to make one ton of aluminium right and how does that tot up over a length over a year, how much more would your costs be if that was where we were for an extended period of time?

29:56We wouldn't be able to pass that on to our customers. I mean, we're seeing volatility ranging from$2 ,800 to$3 ,500 for the traded price of aluminium. Our customer's not going to accept another$1 ,800 of our cost onto that because we've still got other significant raw material costs on top of energy. So couldn't we end up with an aluminium shortage at some point? I think we're starting to see the market get into that now. If you look at the stocks that are on the LME warehouses, we are down at less than half a million tonnes globally. I'm not sure how much metal is stored off market, but this is certainly the tightest LME inventories I've seen in the 20 years that I've been in Aluminium.

30:42Kim, when we were talking earlier about what might happen further down the line, And when you start to hear that from somebody, you know, on the front line of the aluminium smelting industry, what does that make you think? In the construction industry, it can be a crucial metal, I guess, for much of what you do. It is, because exactly the point that Tom has made is that it's embedded in so many other products. The challenge then is to look long term. You know, aluminium is very energy intensive, but again, a bit like steel, it's fantastic at what it does. but should we use it in every single circumstance that we've always used it in?

31:17One of the things that these energy shocks and other things cause us to think about is long-term sustainability. It's not about sustainability only of price and the effort that people have to go to in finding the relevant materials but what's the alternative we could reasonably use for long-term windows? I mean we do use aluminium and others for a reason because it doesn't rot and you don't have to replace them as often you get a better thermal security. So in the longer term, that's probably a better solution than wood, which was traditionally used in the UK. But there may be other aspects where there's some other polymer that could be used.

31:50So it's a matter of working with designers and clever innovators, and we have a lot of those in our business, who think about these issues for the longer term, where it may not solve it this year. But in 15 years' time, what should we be using? What is the balance of materials we should be using that are sourced sustainably, that we can give a material passport, which we regularly do to our clients saying, this is the history of this product. This is how you could reuse it. So the reusable piece about the aluminium, which came through in Tom's commentary. We're talking to clients. I had a meeting with Oxygen Asset Management recently.

32:26There's a program we're looking at as to whether we can reuse concrete slabs in a building. This is part of the longer term sustainability thing. It's not about all fossil fuels now. it's about humans spending a bit more time thinking about how we husband our resources and quite frankly we're all going to turn into our fathers walking around turning off every light for the next while turning off every laptop that's not needed all of those being a little more frugal about our uses of energy in the meantime that plays into our solar chat that we'll be getting into a little bit later as well Tom thank you so much for your time this morning and get really getting into just how this all works and why there could well be the consequences that people see, particularly if they're having work done and the like, and you start hearing these conversations.

33:11Tom Uppington there, who runs the only primary aluminium smelter in the UK.

33:18This is Mike Bolo of Lexicon Valley. And I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words? Do you communicate or acquire information with, you know, language? Hey, us too. So join us on Lexicon Valley to chew over the history, culture and many mysteries of English. Plus some life cracks. Find us on one of those apps where people listen to podcasts. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers.

33:59And that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company, role, seniority, skills, company revenue, so you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. It's why LinkedIn Ads generates the highest B2B return on ad spend of major ad networks. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash broadcast. That's linkedin.com slash broadcast. Terms and conditions apply.

34:30Wake up to money. With Sean Farrington. Good morning to you. Wake up to money on BBC Five Live. Dave, Bennington, saying why aren't we feeling the benefit of green energy yet? I'd be interested to hear if you've been looking into some plans to improve your efficiency, energy efficiency of your home one way or another. We're going to hear a little later from a boss who's seen increased interest in these heat pumps, solar panels, batteries across Scotland and England as well. I've got Kim Sides with us this morning, who's the Executive Director of Construction at BAM UK and Ireland. Kim, you mentioned a couple of times windows.

35:08I'm interested why that clearly is a bit of a forefront of your mind somehow. Is there a particular reason for that? An increased interest? Is that the way to increase your efficiency in a building? Well, we've got a very good example that comes out of that. So with Fife Council, we were involved in building a co-located school. So in Fife, Dumferlin Learning Campus. So you've got two co-located schools there, Woodmill and St Columbus. That opened for the first school term at the end of 2024. And we've now got the results because we're actually also in the facilities management business do all of the upkeep with them.

35:48We're very happy to be appointed because the funding model for that part of the Scottish model doesn't work on construction cost. It works on the efficiency of the building as delivered. and we've actually built a digital twin with that client, an investment to test exactly how that building's working. What does that mean, a digital twin? Okay, a digital twin is we do 3D models to make sure you're not putting a pipe through your sprinkler and all of those aspects. That's been in place for 30 years. This is the next level of working out how you can optimise and get very efficient use of the building.

36:22Right. What's really special about that building is it was built to passive house levels, which is a very high international standard of energy security and very insulated. So you barely need to heat it. You barely need to cool it. These are schools in five. This is a school in Scotland. So not an easy environment to keep at temperature, but the whole philosophy around it is about human comfort. It's not just about saving bills. But in 12 months, because we've been running this digital twin, we can prove that they've saved 50 % of energy in that first year over£470 ,000 worth of energy. That meant it was a more expensive school to build, but they have got the payoff immediately for doing it and then working with our facilities management team to keep it up and to manage it over time.

37:10Is that triple glazing? Triple glazing. But I use windows just because if I got into mechanical and electrical plant, I might lose half the audience at this time of the morning. And that's why I was a big fan of, you know, You kept me interested as well, which is more important than the audience came. Come on. But yeah, exactly. Really interested. And whether, you know, can individual households afford the triple glazing kind of stuff? Is that even feasible? Going back and retrofitting the existing stock, I think, is one of the biggest challenges. And you can see various government approaches trying to encourage that.

37:46People who can afford it will automatically do it. you've always got to look at subsidies as to whether they land where they need to be. I think we can all be a little bit grateful about the timing of this uprising. If it was the middle of winter, I think we'd be having a very different conversation. I think we're all ready for some warmth from spring and summer as we work out how to set ourselves up for the next challenging season. Yeah, very interesting. 85058, clearly some people are thinking about this. Are you making moves yourself? Are you thinking about the winter ahead at the end of 2026?

38:15Will Walker on up with us as well from Raymond James Wealth Management. Will, this idea that we were talking about earlier, that the UK could be particularly hit by these sustained higher energy prices, how are the investment world reacting to that at the moment? We'd often look at the cost of government borrowing. Has that been increasing at a faster rate than it maybe has for other countries? Yes, certainly in the UK, in the eyes of the market, at the debt market looks much more vulnerable. And you can compare that by, I suppose, if you looked at the 10-year gilt yield, which is the cost of money it costs for the government to borrow money over 10 years, it's ramped up to close to 5%.

38:58And you can compare that to the US, where the 10-year yield on their sovereign is sort of closer to 4.4%. And the difference there really is that the US has complete energy independence as opposed to the UK, where we a little bit more vulnerable. Now, funnily enough, yesterday in trading, it was actually across the board, it was a very strong day for sovereigns, and that's UK gilts and also US treasuries. And I think the reason for that is in the eyes of the market, having been very concerned about inflation for the month of March, the attention of the market has now moved to growth prospects.

39:37And what I mean by that is that a period of sustained higher energy costs will actually have a disabling effect on growth prospects. People are going to be able to invest less in their businesses, and that's going to have a knock-on repercussions. And so the gilt market yesterday actually strengthened quite significantly. And when you say strengthened, does that mean the interest rate gets bigger? So, sorry, to be clear, the price goes up. The price goes up, the interest rate comes down. The yield falls, and that's because people are actually considering the fact that actually the central banks may have to actually cut rates to stimulate the economy.

40:15Right, wow. So over the course of yesterday, the market's attention has gone from inflation to growth destruction. It was also helped by the fact that Jerome Powell, who's chair of the Federal Reserve, talked about the fact that inflation expectations in the US for the long term have been well anchored. So he was pretty dovish in his pronouncements. So it was quite a big move yesterday in a very technical area of the market. But effectively, the attention has been turned from inflation to growth prospects. There's certainly been a fair bit of volatility in what is going to move interest rates and in which direction this year in recent weeks.

40:54So there's your latest one. Difficult to make decisions off the back of this stuff, but we can give you the information and allow everybody to go away and make up their own minds. That's what we do here on Wake Up To Money. Let's have a look at what's going on with car finance agreements. There are millions of drivers who were missold car finance agreements will receive compensation this year, according to the financial regulator. So this is the Financial Conduct Authority, which has published its final decision on payouts. The average claim could be worth over£800. Speaking shortly after the announcement, the regulator's chief executive, Nicol Ruthi, explained the decision.

41:29We're going to make sure we hold the industry's feet to the fire. We estimate 12.1 million agreements are eligible for compensation and they will get around£830 each. If people have already complained or complain in the next few months, they will get their compensation sooner. Those who wait a little longer will have to wait until next year. So our advice is to complain now. You do not need to use a claims management company or a law firm who may take around 30 % of any compensation that you are owed. You don't need to use a claims management company or a law firm, say the regulator there. 12 million drivers now eligible for what is reckoned to be about£7.5 billion in compensation in total.

42:13That's revised down from the previous estimates of£8.2 billion. We've got Kevin Durkin with us, who's solicitor at HD Law and brought one of the first car finance cases to the Supreme Court last year. Kevin, good morning. How does this impact that case that you first brought? and the consequences for that? Good morning. Well, the first impact is that it diluted enormously, in my view. The Supreme Court were quite clear when they gave judgment for my client, Mr Johnson, as to the elements that make a relationship unfair. And in that particular case, they decided that the correct award of compensation to make the relationship fair was to pay a sum equivalent to the commission.

42:59Now, the FCA's rules, from what I can see, and I've not gone through the whole 800 pages quite just yet, is a departure from that. The average payout that I was receiving on behalf of my clients, including Mr Johnson, was in the region of£1 ,800. And the top average that the FCA are coming up with is£1 ,000 less than that. So, as I say, it's diluted, the impact of that case, in my opinion. Why do you think they've done that? I don't know for sure, but connecting the dots, it seems to be that they want to leave more money in the coffers of the lenders who've created this other financial mis-selling scandal.

43:41When my case was successful in the Supreme Court, the figure that was being touted back in August was to the tune of£30 billion and were whittled down to£7.2 billion, I believe. So it's not too difficult to fathom the reasons why it's been reduced to such a figure, because it leaves more money, as I say, in the accounts of the lenders who've been part of this other financial mis-selling scandal. When you hear what the regulator says about its thinking behind it there, calling this fair for consumers and proportionate for companies as well, there's an element of this that they don't want to crush an industry, well whether it's the car finance industry or the you know parts of the car industry even perhaps that has been you know this has been a major way for people to be buying cars for a long period of time now and they feel this is proportionate they talk about proportionality because the car finance industry have said well this okay we have caused this mis-selling scandal but it's going to cost us a lot of money to set up complaints departments and affect these compensation payments My view on that is, well, to be damned with the consequences, you shouldn't have created the mis-selling scandal in the first place.

44:59The idea that the car finance industry would be crushed, I think, was doomsday talk from the car finance industry to try and protect itself. And to some extent, it has worked because the FCA have clearly lent into that by using words like proportionality. But I come from the viewpoint of what's best for my clients, and it's to put them back in the position they would have been had the dealer and the car finance company acted fairly. If it causes the car finance industry a lot more money in terms of paying out and setting up complaints departments, well, that's their fault and the consequences be damned.

45:37It shouldn't be a factor that weighs in their favour from the FCA's analysis of what should be considered to be fair and proportionate. The starting point is, treat customers fairly. You've not done that many years ago and put them back in the position they would have been had they been treated fairly. Got Will Walker on up with us this morning from Raymond James Wealth Management. Will, people may feel that they're hearing lots of similarities to the PPI scandal, the huge amounts of compensation that was paid out on that many, many years ago. Does it feel to you like there's been a different approach this time round where Kevin's laying out there, you know, if you've done some mis-selling, It doesn't really matter what the costs of fixing it are.

46:20You should be meeting those costs. Yeah, I can certainly hear both sides of the argument. And no doubt some of the Britain's largest lenders, the likes of Lloyds and Close Brothers, have lobbied the FCA pretty hard, lobbied the government pretty hard, and made the argument that if redress is too large, then it's going to inhibit their ability to lend to the British economy at a time where we've got anemic growth. and I imagine that's the pressure being put on them. But yeah, it certainly sounds like the redress has been diluted somewhat since the last term we heard from the FCA, which I think was in the autumn of 2025.

46:59Kevin, does that come into, you know, with various cases that you look at, does that come into play sometimes where you have to take into account if this is going to hit the economy? On the one hand, we can talk about individuals getting, you know, a compensation that you feel they're entitled to. But actually, if it's on such a large scale as this is, you can actually cause damage in other ways that isn't necessarily the best thing overall. I think the economy is dynamic enough to cope with this and lenders just simply need to cut their cloth accordingly. I'm sure they've enjoyed the huge egregious profits they made from the financial mis-selling scandal.

47:40And if they had to scale back a bit because they need to pay out compensation or effectively hand over money that they shouldn't have taken, a rising out of unfair relationships, then so be it. I do think it was doomsday talk from the industry to try and gain some traction with the FCA, and it's clearly worked. But the starting point is, it's the consumer, and this all seems to be lost in the mix, is the consumers being treated unfairly. They need the money more than the car finance industry, pay the money back, and then if the car finance industry or the car finance institution needs to scale back or make reductions, then that's on them, and maybe in future they'll think about not being involved in another financial miscellaneous scandal.

48:20Is this it now, Kevin? Does it feel like there's a line drawn under it, despite your dissatisfaction with where it's gone? Yes, insofar as this is the final delay over, if you like. There's been a series of delays for consumers and they've been waiting around for an awful long time to receive the compensation. So in terms of this particular financial miscellaneous scandal, then yes, consumers can finally start to expect to receive some payouts. But as a broader question as to whether this is the end of financial miscellaneous, history tells me no, because it's just the next in a long line of scandals that the lenders seem to create.

49:03And I'm on the receiving end of on behalf of my clients. Do you have, without going into detail about, we don't have the right to reply of others that might be involved, but are there other areas of financial products that you've been looking at, maybe not had so much time to have a look at in detail that you feel is going to need more investigation in the future? There are areas that are possible, but this has taken up so much of my time, as you can imagine. But as I say, I've been in this field for the last 20 years and 10 years of it with HD Law. And it just does seem to be a pattern with lenders that they do have a tendency not to provide or disclose key information to consumers.

49:52Because they know it will probably reduce profit because a lot of consumers, when they are presented with the full fax, will push back. and the temptation is too much for lenders to try and cover that up and try and get the transaction done and the deal done. The expensive consumer not being fully informed. Kevin, thank you for your time this morning. Kevin Durkin, solicitor at HD Law there. So if you want to get compensation, well, firstly, Martin Lewis got a podcast up. Of course, he has late last night. So you can have a look at that if you want to hear more details on what to do next. But companies have until the end of June this year for car finance loans that were taken out between April 2014 and November 2024 and then the end of August this year for deals that were agreed before that, after April 2007.

50:39If you've already complained or if you submit a complaint before the end of the period, then you should be contacted by a lender within three months of those dates and lenders will tell them whether they're owed, any compensation and how much. So the regulator says the amount offered, if you're not happy with it, you can complain through the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free. And we heard from the regulator saying before there, you don't need to go through a claims management company or a law firm to do that. Right, on to solar panels, heat pumps, triple glazed windows. Has that been on the agenda for you?

51:10Over the last few weeks, we've heard businesses telling us that skyrocketing energy costs has meant that people are potentially looking to plan for the months and years ahead in a little bit of a different way. looking to reduce reliance on gas for alternatives like heat pumps, solar panels, get some energy produced themselves in their homes. Greg Jackson, the chief executive of Octopus, told us something similar on the Big Boss interview podcast last week. We've seen a 50 % increase in sales of rooftop solar for households. We've seen a 30 % increase in sales of heat pumps, 20 % increase in demand for electric vehicle charges, 30 % increase in demand for electric vehicles.

51:52So, 85058, keep your messages coming in. Somebody just saying had a battery installation under two years ago. In January, it stopped working, tried numerous times to give the energy manufacturer a chance to assist and not hurt anything. Let me know your experiences. is Emma Bohan is with us, who is the Managing Director at IMS Heat Pumps, which installs heat pumps, unsurprisingly, but also solar panels, batteries across England and Scotland. Emma, good morning to you. What have you seen in recent weeks? Good morning, Sean. Well, yeah, echoing what Greg was saying, really. I mean, we operate from just outside Sheffield in England.

52:33I've got an office in Perth, but I'm a group of small companies owned by a group called Home Tree, who operate at the southwest. We've got GreenGen, Little Green Energy Company in Kent, and GeoWalmuth in Newcastle. And as a bellwether across the country, those increases are for sure happening. 20 % down in the southwest, 50 % in the southeast. We've seen a 60 % increase in the north of Scotland in inquiries. And as Greg says, a 50 % increase in sales of people saying yes now. And yeah, so we see these spikes occasionally. We are an industry affected by energy and government policy. And the last one we had was Ukraine.

53:12And this one is the same. It's people recognising that they can provide a bit of their own energy security, really. And they can do that now. Emma, does it give the impression actually then that, you know, when we talk about subsidies and how much encouragement people need for this stuff, that actually there doesn't need to be more support for people to afford this, that given pressures elsewhere, people will make this move? Well, yes, of course, if you have the money, but the industry is fully aware that not everybody has the kind of money that you need. I mean, if you're talking solar PV battery, you're talking anywhere between 6 ,000 and 16 ,000, and between 7 ,000 to 15 ,000 for a heat pump.

53:54If you're looking for the holy trinity, which is the solar PV, the battery, the heat pump, you know, you can be getting to 25 ,000, 30 ,000 pounds. That is not a small sum of money, and not everybody can afford that. No. Which is something that the Warm Homes Plan is looking to address with zero or low cost interest loans. That means the finance of these products becomes more widely available for everybody. Is that there at the moment? It is not there at the moment. So yes, we are seeing very much an increase in the able to pay market. People who have that money, if you have a heat pump, the next step is solar PV.

54:29If you've already got solar PV, the next step is a heat pump. Solar PV battery, whether you're on gas as a fossil fuel heated property, will save you money. You plug your kettle in. It's free if the sun is shining. It's cheap if you charge your battery overnight. Briefly, Emma, we've only got 30 seconds, but can you keep up with demand? We can, yes. The industry is ready. We have seen a spark in industry before. In 2022, 2024, there was more installers than you could shake a stick at. So, yes, the industry is ready. and in terms of heat pumps, 30 % of heat pumps are manufactured in the UK. They're sat on the shelves now, ready and waiting for people who would like to partake.

55:08Very interesting. Emma, thank you so much. Emma Bohan there, Managing Director at IMS Heat Pumps. Big thanks to Kim Sides from BAM UK. Thanks, Kim, and to Will Walker-Arna as well. Thank you to everybody who's been in touch, particularly with their energy developments. That's it from Wake Up To Money. Welcome to the Wayne Rooney Show. Wayne Rooney, Kay Curd and me, Kelly Somers, break down the biggest stories in the Premier League and beyond. He's gone in quite quick, but he hasn't caught some high touch. Don't think it's a red card. Plus, we'll hear the funniest and most outrageous stories from Wayne's career.

55:41I was going into positions and doing things I shouldn't have really been doing, but you do it because you feel like you have to, and that helped us drive on and win the FA Cup. The Wayne Rooney Show. Watch your night, player. Listen on sound.

55:55Hi, this is Alex Kantrowicz. I'm the host of Big Technology Podcast, a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going. They come from places like NVIDIA, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, in meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

56:30This is Mike Bolo of Lexicon Valley. And I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words? Do you communicate or acquire information with, you know, language? Hey, us too. So join us on Lexicon Valley to chew over the history, culture, and many mysteries of English. Plus some life cracks. Find us on one of those apps where people listen to podcasts.