Supermarket bosses to meet Grant Shapps over petrol price concerns

The energy secretary will meet executives from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons on Monday afternoon.

Supermarket bosses are meeting the energy secretary as he calls for fuel price reductions to be passed to drivers (Liam McBurney/PA) (PA Archive)

Supermarket bosses will meet energy secretary Grant Shapps on Monday after he warned he would hold retailers to account if they charge “sky high” petrol prices for customers.

He will meet executives from Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, as well as those from fuel specialists BP, Shell and Esso, on Monday afternoon.

Mr Shapps is set to call on the retailers to share their fuel prices live by the end of next month as part of a scheme designed to prevent overcharging.

The UK’s competition watchdog warned earlier this month that drivers in the UK paid an extra £900 million extra in fuel last year, as they were charged an extra 6p per litre more.

As a result, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it would launch a voluntary scheme to provide customers with live, transparent fuel price data.

A number of supermarkets, such as Sainsbury’s, have already said they would welcome the scheme.

Mr Shapps is expected to tell the supermarkets he intends to pass legislation to enforce the scheme and said in the Sun newspaper over the weekend that he will make sure any reductions in wholesale fuel prices are passed on to customers.

He said: “I want to now hear how they are going to fix this.

He will be calling on retailers to agree (to) the CMA's voluntary scheme that would see them share their accurate road fuel prices by August so we can improve transparency and competition

Prime Minister's official spokesman

“I will be telling them to do the right thing and immediately end any attempt to overcharge at the pumps.”

Downing Street said Mr Shapps will spell out “that it’s clearly unacceptable to be overcharging drivers at the pump and that they need to pass on the savings to consumers, given that wholesale costs have fallen”.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “He will be calling on retailers to agree (to) the CMA’s voluntary scheme that would see them share their accurate road fuel prices by August so we can improve transparency and competition.”

Petrol and diesel prices soared to record levels last year following the Russian invasion of Ukraine but have since fallen back.

Nevertheless, the CMA started an investigation into UK fuel retailer earlier this year amid concerns that wholesale price reductions were not being full passed onto customers.

The regulator cautioned that competition was “not working as well as it should be” in its initial report.

The watchdog also launched a probe into supermarket grocery pricing over concerns that retailers could be profiteering from rampant food and drink inflation and is expected to unveil initial findings this month.