We've learned this week that the soaring cost of energy is likely to go on hurting millions of households until well into next year.

But the government was told in no uncertain terms today that the implications of the crisis could go even wider and deeper.

The bosses of some of Britain's biggest energy-intensive manufacturers - including producers of steel, glass, ceramics and paper - met the Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng today.

And they told him that unless something's done - and done urgently - about the price of wholesale gas, factories up and down the country could soon be forced to shut down production.

The risks, they said, are "very very real" and could affect everything from manufacturing to what people can buy in the shops.

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