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At first glance, there is nothing altogether unusual about the train.

Sitting on the platform at Spandau station in the suburbs of Berlin, it looks much the same as every other one.

But do not be fooled, for this train, manufactured by French group Alstom, is very special indeed. It runs not on electricity or diesel but on what many think is the fuel of the future: hydrogen.

Indeed, the train is something of a record-breaker, having travelled more than a thousand kilometres on a single tank of hydrogen only a few weeks earlier. To travel on, though, it feels just like any other regional locomotive.

There is no engine noise, no whiff of diesel fumes as it pulls away. Indeed, it feels a lot like one of the countless other electric trains you find around Europe.

Which begs the question: what is the point of a hydrogen train?

Hydrogen train
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A hydrogen train looks and feels like its electric and diesel predecessors

The short answer is that not every part of the rail network is electrified. In Germany, about 40% of the tracks aren’t connected to power; in the UK the proportion is even higher: around 60%.

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At the moment trains running on those lines tend to use diesel power, which of course means carbon emissions. And since connecting those tracks to electricity would be fiendishly expensive, hydrogen is seen as one of the most compelling options to eliminate emissions from rail transport.

How you make hydrogen matters

Electrolysis plant tubes at Inovyn for Conway online
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Electrolysis in action

And that brings us to the first thing you need to know about hydrogen. It is a wonder element: incredibly useful for its chemical properties but also capable of being used as a fuel. It can be burnt in much the same way as natural gas is burnt; and it can be run through a fuel cell, where it behaves a little like a battery.

But, even more importantly, hydrogen can be created without any carbon emissions. I say ‘can’ because actually it turns out there are all sorts of ways of making hydrogen, some of which are clean and others are considerably more dirty.

Hydrogen aficionados have come up with a palette of colours to describe the various different methods used to make it which is, on the one hand, slightly ridiculous given hydrogen itself is a colourless gas; but it does at least underline that there are many different routes to making it.

The main way hydrogen is made today (there is nothing especially new about the gas, even if everyone is going on about it a lot more these days) is from natural gas – the methane we get out of the ground and pipe into our boilers. Remove the carbon atom from methane through a process called “steam reforming” and you are left with hydrogen gas.

Shell refinery Cologne for Conway online.
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Shell’s plant near Cologne

This – grey hydrogen as it’s known – is something that already gets produced on a grand scale in refineries and plants around the world. The hydrogen is used as a feedstock for all sorts of chemical processes, it helps us make plastics as well as other petrochemicals, but arguably its most important function is in the manufacture of fertilisers.

Without all those molecules of grey hydrogen produced and turned into ammonia in recent decades, millions of us would have starved. So hydrogen is already quite a big deal.

The problem, as you’ll have noticed, is that grey hydrogen involves quite a lot of carbon emissions. Now, one solution to this is to try to capture those carbon emissions out of the chimney and store the CO2 away underground. Do this and you have a low carbon form of hydrogen (you can’t capture every single carbon atom) commonly known as blue hydrogen.

The colour palette only grows from thereon. There is black hydrogen (made from coal), pink hydrogen (made from nuclear power), turquoise hydrogen (produced by pyrolysis of methane) and on and on. But the holy grail of hydrogen these days is “green hydrogen”.

Green hydrogen is made by passing water through an electrolysis cell, powered with electricity generated by a renewable source, be it wind, solar or hydropower.

The electricity rips apart the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen atoms in the water, creating hydrogen gas at one electrode and oxygen at the other. Voila, you have a truly green source of hydrogen.

Cleaner hydrogen is more expensive to make

A general view of hydrogen electrolysis plant called 'REFHYNE', one of the world's first green hydrogen plants, during a launch event at Shell's Rhineland refinery
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Shell’s hydrogen electroysis plant in Rhineland

Now, there is nothing especially new about electrolysis. We have been using it to create important chemicals in this country and elsewhere besides for more than a century. Indeed there is nothing new about the idea of using hydrogen as the fuel of the future.

People have been driving prototype hydrogen cars for decades; they have been talking about this fuel changing the world for even longer. But it hasn’t happened yet. Why? Well, this brings us to the second thing you need to know about hydrogen: it is really quite expensive to make – at least in its green form.

Models show off Honda's Kiwami fuel-cell concept car, which is making its Australian debut, at the Australian Motor Show in Sydney October 7, 2004.
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Honda’s hydrogen fuel-cell concept car in 2004

This comes back to thermodynamics. Hydrogen gas does not exist in a natural form. Unlike natural gas or oil, this is not a fuel that nature has provided us. The reason we have all those different colours of hydrogen is that we need to make it and there are all sorts of ways of doing that. But the laws of thermodynamics are such that in order to make hydrogen you need to put in more energy than you can get out by burning the gas.

And the amount of energy you need to put in goes up the greener the type of hydrogen. Consider: making a kilogram of grey hydrogen costs roughly $1, or did before gas prices spiked to extraordinary levels. Making a kilo of green hydrogen, on the other hand, costs roughly $5.

This is worth pondering for a moment. Many of its boosters suggest hydrogen is the obvious solution for space heating. Most of the UK’s homes currently have gas boilers.

Tearing out entire radiator systems and replacing them with air source heat pumps, powered by electricity, will involve significant costs for home renovation; some homes will need to be better insulated. It seems intuitively smart to retain your existing radiators and switch them over to hydrogen, right?

Except that a) Hydrogen is expensive: many multiples more expensive than natural gas. And b) because it is such a small molecule, it is far more prone to leaks than methane, meaning houses are significantly more vulnerable to explosions (hydrogen is also extremely combustible).

The country’s gas infrastructure would have to be renewed – an incredibly expensive exercise – and this is all assuming people will want to pay the running cost of the hydrogen itself.

You see the issue here. In theory, there are lots of use cases for hydrogen but in practice, there are many areas where it’s not obvious hydrogen is the answer. Heating is one of those areas: heat pumps are getting better by the year, and the momentum seems to be shifting towards them.

A man looks at Nissan Motor Co's prototype fuel cell car Nissan FCV on display in Tokyo January 28, 2002. Nissan's ultimate environment-friendly clean car, running on hydrogen with speeds of up to 120km/hour, is expected to be a part of test runs around fall of 2002 with hopes to go on the market in 2005, the carmaker said.
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Nissan’s 2002 prototype hydrogen car was expected to go into production in 2005

Something similar has already happened with cars. Back in the 1970s and 80s, many saw hydrogen as the answer for greening automobiles. Jack Nicholson wowed onlookers in the 1970s with a car fuelled by what we would today call “green hydrogen” (see, I told you none of this is very new).

But in the intervening period battery technology has improved so dramatically that most experts now agree that batteries have won that race.

Just because hydrogen can be used, should it be used?

The brings us to the third thing you need to know about hydrogen. There is an awful lot of hype about this gas, but while it could be used in all sorts of applications, it’s not altogether clear it should be used in all those applications.

Hydrogen cars work great, but they are more expensive than their battery electric counterparts and have roughly similar range. It is, of course, much quicker to refuel a hydrogen car than to charge a battery, but then that assumes you can find a hydrogen fuelling station.

There are not many – far, far fewer than battery charging points (let alone simple three-pin plugs).

According to Meredith Annex, head of heating and hydrogen at BloombergNEF – which specialises in energy research – there are some obvious places where hydrogen will be all-important, starting with those areas where it’s already used – for instance, in making fertilisers and as a chemical feedstock.

It will almost certainly play a role in making green steel, where it could be even cheaper than some of today’s blast furnaces.

“And then you start looking at things like shipping fuel, where it looks likely that ammonia and methanol, which are both produced from hydrogen, are both looking like really good solutions,” she says.

“And then you come to the areas where the jury is still out. Those are things like power generation, aviation fuel, where there are a lot of competing technologies.”

And, it turns out, that jury-still-out section also includes trains, which brings us back to that Alstom locomotive in Berlin. Why use a hydrogen train instead of, say, a battery train? The short answer is that batteries are very heavy and bulky.

If you wanted a battery-powered train to cover 1,000 kilometres, as this train did recently, you would need so many batteries stacked up inside the train that there wouldn’t be enough room for any passengers.

Ed Conway on a hydrogen train in Germany.
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Ed Conway on a hydrogen train in Germany

So battery trains might make sense for rural lines of 100 kilometres or so, but for longer journeys there’s a stronger case for hydrogen.

But the problem is that all of this remains somewhat fantastical until you have the necessary infrastructure: the pipes and terminals to refill those hydrogen tanks, not to mention the facilities themselves which can produce the hydrogen.

Germany is one of the most proactive countries in Europe on this front. These hydrogen trains are already running in the north of the country (albeit powered by grey hydrogen rather than the green stuff).

The UK, on the other hand, has no hydrogen trains or indeed the facilities on which to run them – whatever the colour of the hydrogen.

Hydrogen needs big investment – and the UK’s strategy is uncertain

That brings us to the fourth thing you need to know about hydrogen: it won’t happen without significant government intervention.

That intervention might mean setting a price for carbon, it might mean providing the infrastructure – the national grid for hydrogen (a non-trivial exercise given that you can’t just run it in most of the existing gas pipelines). It means being clearer about whether you want homes to be heated with hydrogen or by heat pumps.

Yet so far no one is entirely sure where the UK government (this one or for that matter the last two of them) stands on hydrogen. There have been documents about a hydrogen strategy but most of them have looked more like thought exercises than clear signals of a direction of travel.

Little money has been set aside for the sector and the constant chaos in Westminster in recent years has only compounded the uncertainty.

Read one of those documents and you will see that the UK is poised to be a “world leader in low carbon hydrogen production and use”.

Wind turbines from Vattenfall are seen at the North Sea in Scheveningen, Netherlands August

And there are lots of reasons to be optimistic about the UK. We have plentiful renewable power capacity coming on stream in the North Sea. We have decades of expertise in working with fuels and engineering the projects necessary to make hydrogen.

Yet if anything, the UK is a laggard in this race rather than a leader.

It also seems to have chosen the wrong horse in the race, putting much of its investment towards “blue hydrogen” – the kind you get from natural gas, squirrelling away the excess carbon – instead of green hydrogen.

That seemed like a prudent move when blue hydrogen was considerably cheaper than green but today, with gas prices so high, green hydrogen looks cost competitive with blue – a stunning change.

How will the UK adapt to this changing landscape? The short answer is no one has a clue; there have been so many changes in strategy, not to mention personnel in government, that it’s no longer especially clear.

That’s causing frustration among businesses which are vying to be part of the hydrogen economy. Inovyn, a part of Ineos which produces chemicals from its Runcorn base, has long used electrolysis to produce chlorine and hydrogen.

Electrolysis plant Inovyn on river Mersea for Conway online
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Inovyn’s Electrolysis plant in the North West

Its cells are currently plugged into the national grid, but were they powered by wind or solar, the hydrogen produced there would be green hydrogen. The company has expertise in making those cells and could be producing them for markets around the world – but the lack of a market in the UK represents a challenge.

ITM Power, a company based in Sheffield, is among the world leaders in a slightly different type of electrolysis cell (proton-exchange membranes rather than the alkaline cells Inovyn uses at Runcorn).

They already sell their units all over Europe, including at a Shell project in Cologne which promises to be the biggest green hydrogen site on the continent.

That these cells are wending their way across the Channel is not without significance.

China is bossing the race

The reality is that Britain is already a laggard in the race to create a European battery industry. There is a risk it ends up missing out on the race to create a hydrogen industry too.

In any case, the global race is already being bossed by China, which is dominant in almost every node of the hydrogen supply chain – much as it is for solar power and is shaping up to be for batteries. Britain, with its equivocal attitude towards industrial strategy, is currently an also-ran.

Electrolysis tubes close up at Inovyn for Conway online
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The electrolysis process happening here could revolutionise the energy industry – if it’s applied properly

Given there are still so many question marks about the use cases of hydrogen, you are perhaps asking yourself: who cares? Is there really so much to be gained from investing in something which could end up being another bubble?

The short answer is that while there is certainly a lot of froth in the hydrogen sector, there is also one, big compelling reason why this time might be different for H2.

If we are going to eliminate carbon emissions altogether, that means eliminating or seriously curtailing all sources of pollution. So we will still need a way of making fertiliser which doesn’t involve burning natural gas. That means hydrogen.

If we are going to make steel without burning coal, that will almost certainly mean using hydrogen instead. If we are going to make certain critical petrochemicals – the kind of things without which we are all in big trouble – we need hydrogen.

But, most of all, if we are going to have green power, then we will need lots and lots of hydrogen.

Hydrogen’s killer app

Electrolysis plant Inovyn for Conway online
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Inside Inovyn’s electrolysis plant

And this, ultimately, is the killer app for this fuel. Renewable energy is inherently intermittent. The sun only shines for so many hours a day; the wind does not blow every day.

So we need some sort of backup to store power for those times when it’s not being generated by renewables. At the moment that backup is provided by natural gas and (to a lesser extent) by nuclear. We have a few pump storage reservoirs which can store some power, but only so much.

And while batteries can store certain amounts of power, you would need staggering numbers of them to provide the terawatts of power storage we would need to keep the grid replenished for hours or for that matter days.

So this is where hydrogen comes in. When the wind is blowing hard, we send that power to electrolysis cells where it creates lots and lots of hydrogen, which then acts as a mammoth national battery: when we need backup power we burn it in power stations or run it through fuel cells.

Squint a little bit and you can envisage a future where, with enough wind turbines and enough green hydrogen facilities, Britain (and for that matter the world) could have a truly green electricity system.

Yet getting there will take an awful lot of investment. It will take vision and commitment.

Neither of these things are in limitless supply in Whitehall right now. Which is why you have to travel much further afield to find exciting new hydrogen projects these days.

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AstraZeneca exit is a frightening prospect for the City and the government

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AstraZeneca exit is a frightening prospect for the City and the government

It’s a threat that will send a shiver down the spine of Downing Street and shake the City of London to its core.

Even the notion that AstraZeneca (AZ) – the UK’s most valuable listed company – is thinking of upping sticks and switching its stock market listing to America is a frightening prospect on many levels.

After all, if your biggest firm departs for Wall Street, what message does it send to an already bruised London stock market that has struggled to find its way since the UK’s vote to leave the European Union?

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The timing of the report in The Times that Pascal Soriot, the pharmaceutical company’s long-standing chief executive, is considering his own Brexit for the company, will not be lost on anyone.

The Treasury is under severe strain and the Starmer government, apparently focused on compromise given its welfare reform U-turns, bruised.

Ministers have been scrambling to get the support of business back, after a budget tax raid that has added to the cost of employing people in the UK, by launching a series of strategies to demonstrate a growth-led focus.

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Mr Soriot’s reported shift is the culmination of years of frustration over UK tax rates and support for business – though it could also remove a focus on his own remuneration as the highest-paid director of a UK-listed firm.

Astrazeneca Boss Pascal Soriot
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Pascal Soriot has run AZ since 2012

AZ has its own gripes with Labour.

In January, the company cancelled a planned £450m investment in a vaccine factory on Merseyside, accusing the government of reneging on the previous Conservative administration’s offer of financial aid.

At the same time, it has been rebuilding its presence in the United States.

That speaks to not only a home market snub but also the election of a US president intent on protecting, as he sees it, America-based companies and jobs.

Donald Trump is threatening 25% tariffs on all pharma imports.

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How Trump’s tariffs are biting

AZ has already promised a $3.5bn (£2.6bn) investment in US manufacturing by the end of 2026.

It has also rejoined the leading US drug lobby group, bolstering its voice in Washington DC.

There are sound reasons for bolstering its US footprint; more than 40% of AZ’s revenues are made in the world’s largest economy. Greater US production would also shield it from any duties imposed by Mr Trump and any MAGA successor.

Since Brexit, complaints among UK stock market constituents have been of low valuations compared to peers (with a weak pound also leaving them vulnerable to takeovers), weaker access to capital and poor appetite for new listings.

Wise, the money transfer firm, became the latest UK name to say that it intends to move its primary listing to the US just last month.

Pic: Europa Press via AP
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Shein had been exploring a London flotation until it was blocked. Pic: Europa Press via AP

If followed through, it would tread in the footsteps of Flutter Entertainment and the building equipment suppler CRH – just two big names to have already left.

London was snubbed for a listing by its former chip-designing resident ARM back in 2023.

An initial public offering by Shein, the controversial fast fashion firm, had offered the prospect of the biggest flotation for the UK in many years but that was blocked by the Chinese authorities.

Efforts to bolster the City’s appeal, such as through the Financial Conduct Authority’s overhaul of listing rules and the creation of pension megafunds to aid access to capital, have also been boosted in recent months by investors in US companies taking a second look at comparatively low valuations in Europe.

Market analysts have charted a cash spread away from the US as a hedge against an erratic White House.

The Times report suggested that Mr Soriot’s plans were likely to face some opposition from members of the board, in addition to the UK government.

Pic: itock
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The City of London has faced a series of challenges since Brexit Pic: iStock

AstraZeneca has not commented on the story. Crucially, it did not deny it.

But a government spokesperson said: “Through our forthcoming Life Sciences Sector Plan, we are launching a 10-year mission to harness the life sciences sector to drive long-term economic growth and build a stronger, prevention-focused NHS.

“We have already started delivering on key actions, from investing up to £600m in the Health Data Research Service alongside Wellcome, through to committing over £650m in Genomics England and up to £354m in Our Future Health.

“This is clear evidence of our commitment and confidence in life sciences as a driver of both economic growth and better health outcomes.”

Governments don’t comment on stories such as these, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the departure of your biggest firm by market value is not the message a government laser-focused on growth can afford to allow.

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‘Catastrophic failure’ led to Heathrow power outage – with chances missed to prevent it

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'Catastrophic failure' led to Heathrow power outage - with chances missed to prevent it

A power outage that shut Heathrow Airport earlier this year, causing travel chaos for more than 270,000 passengers, was caused by a “catastrophic failure” of equipment in a nearby substation, according to a new report.

Experts say the fire at the North Hyde Substation, which supplies electricity to Heathrow, started following the failure of a high-voltage electrical insulator known as a bushing, before spreading.

The failure was “most likely” caused by moisture entering the equipment, according to the report.

Photo taken with permission from the social media site X, formerly Twitter, posted by @JoselynEMuirhe1 of the fire at Hayes electrical substation. More than 1,300 flights to and from Heathrow Airport will be disrupted on Friday due to the closure of the airport following the fire. Issue date: Friday March 21, 2025.
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The fire at Hayes electrical substation, which led to Heathrow Airport shutting down in March. Pic: @JoselynEMuirhe1/PA

National Grid, which owns the substation, missed two opportunities to prevent the failure, experts found, the first in 2018 when a higher-than-expected level of moisture was found in oil samples.

Such a reading meant “an imminent fault and that the bushing should be replaced”, according to guidance by the National Grid Electricity Transmission.

However, the report by National Energy System Operator (NESO) said the appropriate responses to such a serious issue were “not actioned”, including in 2022 when basic maintenance was postponed.

“The issue therefore went unaddressed,” the report added.

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Moment Heathrow substation ignites

The design and configuration of the airport’s internal power network meant the loss of just one of its three supply points would “result in the loss of power to operationally critical systems, leading to a suspension of operations for a significant period”, the report added.

Heathrow – which is Europe’s biggest airport – closed for around 16 hours on 21 March following the fire, before reopening at about 6pm.

Around 1,300 flights were cancelled and more than 270,000 air passenger journeys were disrupted.

The North Hyde electrical substation which caught fire. More than 1,300 flights to and from Heathrow Airport will be disrupted on Friday due to the closure of the airport following the fire. Picture date: Friday March 21, 2025.
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The North Hyde electrical substation which caught fire. File pic: PA

Tens of millions of pounds were lost, thousands of passengers were stranded, and questions were raised about the resilience of the UK’s infrastructure.

More than 71,000 domestic and commercial customers lost power as a result of the fire and the resulting power outage, the report said.

NESO chief executive, Fintan Slye, said there “wasn’t the control within their [National Grid’s] asset management systems that identified that this [elevated moisture levels] got missed.

“They identified a fault, [but] for some reason the transformer didn’t immediately get pulled out of service and get repaired.

Smoke rises from a fire at the North Hyde Electricity Substation.
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Smoke rises following the fire

“There was no control within the system that looked back and said ‘oh, hang on a second, you forgot to do this thing over here’.”

Sky’s science and technology editor, Tom Clarke, pointed to the age of the substation’s equipment, saying “some of these things are getting really very old now, coming to the end of their natural lives, and this is an illustration of what can happen if they are not really well maintained”.

The report also highlights a lack of joined-up thinking, he said, as “grid operators don’t know who’s critical national infrastructure on the network, and they don’t have priority”.

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Heathrow bosses were ‘warned about substation’

Responding to the report’s findings, a Heathrow spokesperson said: “A combination of outdated regulation, inadequate safety mechanisms, and National Grid’s failure to maintain its infrastructure led to this catastrophic power outage.

“We expect National Grid to be carefully considering what steps they can take to ensure this isn’t repeated.

“Our own Review, led by former Cabinet Minister Ruth Kelly, identified key areas for improvement and work is already underway to implement all 28 recommendations.”

In May, Ms Kelly’s investigation revealed that the airport’s chief executive couldn’t be contacted as the crisis unfolded because his phone was on silent.

Stranded passengers at Heathrow Terminal 5.
Pic: PA
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Stranded passengers at Heathrow Terminal 5 following the fire
Pic: PA

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who commissioned the NESO report, called it “deeply concerning”, because “known risks were not addressed by the National Grid Electricity Transmission”.

Mr Miliband said energy regulator Ofgem, which opened an investigation on Wednesday after the report was published, is investigating “possible licence breaches relating to the development and maintenance of its electricity system at North Hyde.

“There are wider lessons to be learned from this incident. My department, working across government, will urgently consider the findings and recommendations set out by NESO and publish a response to the report in due course.”

National Grid said in a statement it has “a comprehensive asset inspection and maintenance programme in place” and said it has “taken further action since the fire”.

This includes “an end-to-end review” of its oil sampling process and results, further enhancement of fire risk assessments at all operational sites, and “re-testing the resilience of substations that serve strategic infrastructure”.

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A spokesperson said: “We fully support the recommendations in the report and are committed to working with NESO and others to implement them. We will also cooperate closely with Ofgem’s investigation.

“There are important lessons to be learnt about cross sector resilience and the need for increased coordination, and we look forward to working with government, regulators and industry partners to take these recommendations forward.”

The Metropolitan Police previously confirmed on 25 March that officers had “found no evidence to suggest that the incident was suspicious in nature”.

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UK content creators demand formal recognition from the government

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UK content creators demand formal recognition from the government

The UK’s YouTubers, TikTok creators and Instagram influencers have been surveyed on mass for the first time ever, and are demanding formal recognition from the government.

The creator economy in the UK is thought to employ around 45,000 people and contribute over £2bn to the country in one year alone, according to the new research by YouTube and Public First.

But, despite all that value, its workers say they feel underappreciated by the authorities.

Max Klyemenko, famous for his Career Ladder videos, wants the government to take creators like himself more seriously. Pic: Youtube
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Max Klyemenko, famous for his Career Ladder videos, wants the government to take creators like himself more seriously. Pic: Youtube

“If you look at the viewership, our channel is not too different from a big media company,” said Max Klymenko, a content creator with more than 10 million subscribers and half a billion monthly views on average.

“If you look at the relevancy, especially among young audiences, I will say that we are more relevant. That said, we don’t really get the same treatment,” he told Sky News.

Fifty-six per cent of the more than 10,000 creators surveyed said they do not think UK creators have a “voice in shaping government policies” that affect them.

Only 7% think they get enough support to access finance, while just 17% think there is enough training and skills development here in the UK.

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Nearly half think their value is not recognised by the broader creative industry.

The creative industries minister, Sir Chris Bryant, said the government “firmly recognises the integral role that creators play” in the UK’s creative industries and the fact that they help “to drive billions into the economy” and support more than 45,000 jobs.

“We understand more can be done to help creators reach their full potential, which is why we are backing them through our new Creative Industries Sector Plan,” he said.

Ben Woods said the government needs to "broaden its lens" to include creators
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Ben Woods said the government needs to “broaden its lens” to include creators

“The UK has got a fantastic history of supporting the creative industries,” said Ben Woods, a creator economy analyst, Midia Research who was not involved in the report.

“Whether you look at the film side, lots of blockbuster films are being shot here, or television, which is making waves on the global stage.

“But perhaps the government needs to broaden that lens a little bit to look at just what’s going on within the creator economy as well, because it is highly valuable, it’s where younger audiences are spending a lot of their time and [the UK is] really good at it.”

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According to YouTube, formal recognition would mean creators are factored into official economic impact data reporting, are represented on government creative bodies, and receive creator-specific guidance from HMRC on taxes and finances.

For some, financial guidance and clarity would be invaluable; the ‘creator’ job title seems to cause problems when applying for mortgages or bank loans.

Podcaster David Brown owns a recording studio for creators
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Podcaster David Brown owns a recording studio for creators

“It’s really difficult as a freelancer to get things like mortgages and bank accounts and credit and those types of things,” said podcaster David Brown, who owns a recording studio for creators.

“A lot of people make very good money doing it,” he told Sky News.

“They’re very well supported. They have a lot of cash flow, and they are successful at doing that job. It’s just the way society and banking and everything is set up. It makes it really difficult.”

The creative industries minister said he is committed to appointing a creative freelance champion and increasing support from the British Business Bank in order to “help creators thrive and drive even more growth in the sector”.

The government has already pledged to boost the UK’s creative industries, launching a plan to make the UK the number one destination for creative investment and promising an extra £14bn to the sector by 2035.

These influencers want to make sure they are recognised as part of that.

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