Petrol Prices

Chris Heaton-Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davey]

That is an extremely interesting point. I hope the hon. Gentleman is liaising with his local trading standards department, in case there are any serious problems, but I shall certainly ask my officials to look into it. It is not just the quality of the fuel, however, but fuel efficiency that matters: we need far more fuel efficient cars and we need standards that send a signal to the industry that we want it to make its cars more fuel efficient. The Government have a proud record of supporting the electric motor industry, and the UK is beginning to be a real producer of electric cars.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Daventry residents will be unsurprised by the Commission’s raids on oil companies last night. In fact, they are fed up to the back teeth with paying way more than other consumers nearby. I was interested in what the Secretary of State said about anti-competitive actions and how the OFT might be looking at local markets in the future. Could it not look for evidence simply by going to a price comparison website, where straightaway it would be able to see prices and demonstrate such behaviour historically? Furthermore, does he recognise the concern about such European Commission investigations, which can limp on for decades?

[Mr Davey]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports the fact that the European Commission is investigating the market. It is important that it gets our full support. On the OFT and its finding of possible problems in local markets, I am sure that the OFT does exactly what he says, but it might well need more information to prove manipulation. Again, I call on hon. Members and members of the public to provide such information, if they have it, to the competition authorities.