Supermarkets: Voluntary Price Caps

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, if the House allows me, I will quote a headline from the Daily Telegraph:

“Rishi Sunak scraps plan for supermarket price cap after backlash … Downing Street had been considering a voluntary cap scheme for major supermarkets, modelled on similar plan in France”.


In the Government coming to the conclusion that this would be the wrong way forward, instead of going back 50 years we can go back to 2023. What did the current Government learn from the attempt under Rishi Sunak as Chancellor to introduce the very caps that have been described by those on the right-hand side as Stalinist?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I would not necessarily recommend that the noble Lord rely on a headline in the Daily Telegraph as the basis for his assumptions of what the Government are or are not considering.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

It was the previous Government.

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I understand that, but, as I already said, this Government are not considering price caps, as some speculation has suggested, and we would never advocate for that.