Fuel Prices

Debate between Robert Halfon and Duncan Hames

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

I am going to make a little more progress.

Returning to the point I was making, slowly the smaller firms are squeezed out of business. Then, the “own brand” stations put their prices up. This is exactly the same kind of anticompetitive stranglehold that breweries have over pubs, as we have heard in this House.

In my constituency of Harlow, some garages are charging 140p for petrol and 144p for diesel, which is a full 10p more expensive than the cheapest forecourts in the UK. The same complaint was made in Germany about five oil wholesalers who are active in the UK. Germany’s Federal Cartel Office—Bundeskartellamt—acted quickly, and opened a criminal investigation. Why cannot we do that here in Britain, too? Austria has actively started regulating its fuel markets, and the AA has noted the impact of that in respect of keeping fuel prices down. If the oil companies have nothing to hide, they could opt for open-book accounting, and be much more transparent.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Has he noticed the practice of retail outlets to offer cut-price fuel two days a week, which they sometimes do while also offering fuel at a higher price than only a week ago? This kind of excessive volatility in oil prices seems deliberately designed to confuse motorists so as to make it as hard as possible for them to shop around for the cheapest fuel.