Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, with reference to HM Treasury’s press release entitled Chancellor commits to new anti-profiteering powers and fights back on rising bills, published on 20 May 2026, what safeguards will be in place to help ensure that legitimate price increases caused by higher operating costs are not incorrectly classified as profiteering.

Bearing down on the cost of living is a priority for the government, including addressing the impact of the Iran conflict. My officials are rapidly developing legislation to grant the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and potentially other regulators, powers to require companies to provide information where a crisis is disrupting UK markets for essential goods and services. Markets like food, fuel and medicine will be in scope, as well as markets rendered essential by the particular crisis, like hand sanitiser during the pandemic. The powers will allow government to rapidly understand and respond to crises and – in appropriate cases – publish information about markets so consumers can choose where to spend their money.

We are developing these powers alongside the CMA and other regulators. We will design them so that, as far as possible, they protect business from unnecessary burdens and are only used when absolutely necessary. We will publish information on estimated impacts in due course.

The government is not prohibiting certain levels of pricing or profit. I would like to thank the businesses across the economy that have fought to keep their pricing as low as possible in extremely difficult circumstances, and the government believes competitive markets are the best mechanism for driving down prices. But the Chancellor has been clear that if examples of egregious exploitation of this crisis are exposed, the government will not hesitate to act.