Chancellor Rachel Reeves has today unveiled new measures “to protect people from unjustified price hikes” and giving consumer watchdogs new powers, even as the Treasury has attempted to distance itself from reports of planned supermarket price caps.
The Treasury announced new measures today, including establishing a new framework to give the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and other regulators “more targeted powers to act quickly to tackle excessive and unfair price rises”.
New measures include allowing the CMA to “name and shame” organisations they have identified price gouging or putting their prices up “to an unfair and unjustifiably high level during a crisis”.
Should the CMA or another regulator “observe price gouging in an emergency… and conclude that they needed further powers to tackle it to support consumers rapidly, the government stands ready to act, including with highly targeted enforcement powers to give them the ability to direct firms to stop exploitative pricing practices and where necessary, impose penalties if needed”, the Treasury said.
The government said it would also set up a new working group under the Regulators Council to share intelligence and monitor the response of businesses.
Reeves said: “When global events drive up costs, working families feel it first. I will not tolerate anyone exploiting a crisis to make a quick buck off the back of hard working people.
“We are backing families, backing fairness, and building a stronger and more resilient economy through our long-term economic plan.”
The announcement comes after it emerged overnight that supermarkets were being urged by the government to limit food prices in return for easing regulations.
Supermarket and retail bosses have criticised the government.
British Retail Consortium chief executive Helen Dickinson said: “Rather than introduce 1970s-style price controls and trying to force retailers to sell goods at a loss, the government must focus on how it will reduce the public policy costs which are pushing up food prices in the first place.
“The UK has the most affordable grocery prices in Western Europe thanks to the fierce competition between supermarkets”.
Former Marks & Spencer boss Lord Rose told the BBC: “This smacks of state control. It’s idiotic, it’s dangerous and it’ll never work.”
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