Are our supermarkets ripping us off - should the government investigate? - video Dailymotion

Interview with politics expert Dr Steve McCabe

Transcript

00:00The fact is that when people sort of look at their shopping bill, and if they compare

00:05it to sort of a couple of years ago, and certainly sort of say five years ago, they will see

00:09that they're paying an awful lot more.

00:11Windfall taxes are really sort of difficult because you've got to be careful so that the

00:15people you try and sort of control, they don't sort of find a different way of sort of maneuvering

00:20around the taxes.

00:21And we've heard about this more recently, if you remember, during the sort of the Ukraine

00:25crisis, which of course I know is still ongoing, and the sort of the huge hike it sort of led

00:29to in energy prices and the sort of the fact that sort of energy companies were doing well

00:34out of it.

00:35A recent parliamentary report highlighted how the rising cost of living continues to

00:39affect UK households, with 55% of adults reporting increased living costs in May 2024, with prices

00:48in supermarkets being a major factor on the squeeze to household budgets.

00:55And the fact their profits are going to be spiking would suggest that sort of that, from

01:00their perspective, they're doing something right.

01:02But of course, the only reason that they're doing that is, of course, they're sort of

01:05managing to take more money out of our pocket.

01:07And dare I say, we are still by and large in a cost of living crisis.

01:11In Australia, the government there has launched an inquiry into supermarket prices due to

01:16rising grocery costs.

01:18Their investigation will examine pricing practices, market competition and the relationship between

01:24farms and retail prices.

01:26With similar accusations being made against the big UK food retailers, could we see a

01:31similar investigation happening here in the UK?

01:35But it's really difficult because governments don't like to intervene in markets.

01:39They allow them to sort of to set their own sort of level.

01:41But yeah, dare I say, if Australia can do it, then I think the sort of the Labour government,

01:46you know, with all the things they've got on, it may be sort of something they can't

01:49do immediately.

01:51It would be pretty popular amongst the sort of the public.

01:54And the difficulty is, is how you then sort of go in and regulate.

01:58And that does take a lot of effort.