The Bank of England governor has accused some retailers of profiteering from inflated petrol and diesel costs, warning regulators must tackle the problem to help bring down soaring prices.
Andrew Bailey, who is facing flak for failing to tackle soaring inflation, said action will help families “save money” and deal with the rising cost of living.
“If you look at petrol prices some sellers of petrol have possibly been charging too much for it,” he told the BBC.
“Now that’s important [not overcharging], it helps us with inflation but it’s just fairer if these things are tackled.”
The Bank is concerned that rising prices will spark higher wage demands denting efforts to bring inflation back down to its 2% target.
Bailey’s comments came just days after the UK's competition regulator accused Britain’s biggest supermarkets of making around £900mln by failing to pass on the falling wholesale fuel costs to consumers at the pumps.
The Competition and Markets Authority said Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons made an average of 6p extra profit on every litre of fuel sold by keeping their margins higher because of a lack of competition.