Supermarkets: Voluntary Price Caps

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

I agree with the first half of my noble friend’s point but not necessarily the second half—I think there was an “if” in there, which is important. As I have said already, we are taking action across the board to ease the cost of living: we are freezing rail fares and prescription fees, and we have taken £150 off energy bills. These are the driving factors behind today’s bigger than expected fall in inflation, which my noble friend mentioned. Further, today, the Chancellor has extended the 5p cut on fuel duty to the end of the year.

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, at a time of rising economic populism, there is a responsibility on all of us in this House, and especially Ministers, to be calm, factual and accurate. To follow on from the remarks of my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, and the noble Lord, Lord Sahota, there is a widespread view among the public that supermarkets are making huge profits. A survey by the Institute of Economic Affairs found that the median voter thinks that supermarkets make a 50% profit, whereas the actual figure is about 3%. Will the Minister take this opportunity to repeat the very basic economic verity that price rises are a signal to producers to make more of something and that if prices are artificially frozen then there is less incentive to bring that product to market, so you end up with a worse shortage and higher prices than you had before you started?

[Lord Livermore (Lab)]

As always, the noble Lord is very interesting. I simply say that I always strive to be calm, factual and accurate.