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28/05/2023

Rishi Sunak to ask supermarkets to cap price of staples

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The UK government is drawing up plans for supermarkets to voluntarily cap the price of staples, in an effort to ease the burden of rocketing food costs on consumers.

Steve Barclay, health secretary, confirmed on Sunday that ministers were in talks with retailers about how to “address the very real concerns” many households harbour about food inflation and the cost of living.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, he stressed that the proposals were “not about any element of compulsion” and that the government was “working constructively” with supermarkets.

The idea of supermarkets instigating voluntary price controls on essential foods resulted from a meeting between chief secretary to the Treasury John Glen and retail representatives earlier this month, amid alarm in government about rampant food inflation.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also spoken with farmers and other food producers about supply chain issues, while chancellor Jeremy Hunt has held talks with food manufacturers in the past fortnight. Sunak is expected to make public remarks about the state of the economy during a regional visit on Wednesday.

Official data for April showed that the annual inflation rate for food and non-alcoholic drinks remained stubbornly high at 19.1 per cent. Food has now overtaken fuel as the single-biggest driver of the UK’s high inflation.

The Resolution Foundation think-tank calculates that annual food bills for the average family will be £1,000 higher than their pre-pandemic level by July — hitting poorer families hard, because they spend a higher proportion of their budgets on food.

But economists have poured scorn on the idea of fighting this through voluntary price controls, saying it would be better to increase welfare benefits for the poorest households and rely on competition to bring prices down.

Barclay acknowledged that many suppliers were small, family-run businesses that were facing “significant pressure” themselves from increasing prices. The government would monitor the impact of its plans and aim to “protect” vulnerable suppliers, he said.

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary, derided the proposals as “extraordinary”, telling the BBC: “Rishi Sunak is now like a sort of latter-day Edward Heath with price controls.” In the 1970s Heath, then prime minister, introduced price controls in a bid to curb inflation.

While Ashworth acknowledged that the nation faced an “inflation problem”, he said it was the result of consecutive Conservative administrations’ failure to invest in sustainable energy and improve the supply of labour.

A government official said there were no plans to forcibly cap the price of food, telling the Financial Times: “The critical thing is any scheme would be voluntary and for retailers to take up.”

The official added: “We recognise retailers operate on low margins. But we are acutely aware of the cost of living squeeze people feel. So we are talking to retailers about what can be done to keep prices as low as possible.”

Under the proposals, first reported by The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, supermarkets could agree to cap prices for essentials such as bread and milk, as well as own-brand products over which they have the greatest control.

The scheme could mirror a deal the French government agreed with major supermarkets in March, under which retailers were asked to make their own choice about which food items to earmark for price freezes and reductions.

Economists were sceptical on Sunday. Tony Yates, an independent economist and associate at the Resolution Foundation, said price caps would pile pressure on the food distribution sector, and would not help bring overall inflation down — while making the cap voluntary would introduce uncertainty over the extent of compliance.

“You can’t hide when a nation gets poorer, but that’s what they are trying to do,” he said on Twitter.

Julian Jessop, former chief economist at the free market Institute of Economic Affairs, said supermarkets might be willing to regard some basic items as loss leaders, but might cut corners on quality or raise prices on other items to compensate. They could also “price to the cap” rather than cutting prices once falling costs allowed.

The Bank of England does not think so-called greedflation has played any big role in driving UK food inflation. Its last monetary policy report noted that if anything, profit margins had been squeezed along the food supply chain. But it said food price inflation would be slow to subside, as producers often bought inputs on fixed-term contracts and were locked into high costs.

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10/04/2023

Rishi Sunak calls for swift return of Stormont Assembly ahead of President Biden's visit to Northern Ireland. Read More;

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has called for the swift return of the Stormont Assembly ahead of President Biden's visit to Northern Ireland.

06/02/2023

Sunak spends thousands on helicopter trips since becoming PM.

Rishi Sunak has taken private helicopter trips to his constituency in North Yorkshire costing thousands of pounds since he became prime minister, the Guardian understands.
The commute to Richmond from a London heliport is likely to raise further questions about the prime minister’s commitment to tackling the climate crisis.
Sunak is understood to have used private helicopters from London on dates in November and December, costing about £16,000. The trips were privately funded.
No 10 did not dispute the use of helicopters and said the prime minister paid for all his own travel that did not pertain to government business. A spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on the prime minister’s travel.”
Northallerton, a town near to Sunak’s constituency home, is on the mainline from London Kings Cross. There are usually more than 30 trains a day and the 200-mile journey takes about two hours and 15 minutes. Booked a day in advance, a single journey would cost about £87.
The prime minister has previously been criticised for his use of taxpayer-funded private jets to visit different parts of the country as prime minister, including three flights over the course of a 10-day period.
In January, the prime minister flew on a 14-seat aircraft to Scotland, then to an event in Leeds and then days later took the same jet to an event in Lancashire for a public Q&A after his levelling-up funding announcement.
Hiring the jet would cost more than £2,500 an hour on the commercial market, according to the aircraft purchasing advisers Conklin and de Decker.
Downing Street has previously defended the prime minister’s travel arrangements as making the best use of his time, denying that rail reliability was a factor in his decisions.
The government has pledged to cut carbon emissions in its drive to reach net zero by 2050. Part of that includes reducing emissions from the domestic aviation market as part of a programme called “jet zero”, aimed at reducing the 7% of emissions that come from the aviation sector.

13/12/2022

Rishi Sunak makes statement to MPs about strategy for small boat arrivals – UK politics live..

Sunak to make statement to MPs about plans to deal with illegal immigration
Rishi Sunak will give a statement to MPs today about tackling illegal immigration, sources are telling journalists. This will be the announcement previewed in the Times. (See 9.28am.)

01/12/2022

British foreign policy is in flux – we need more than Sunak’s pragmatic blandness.

It would be insulting and false to dub Rishi Sunak as, in Theresa May’s infamous phrase, a citizen of nowhere. Yet with a career rooted in international banking and financial networking, our prime minister is in many ways the embodiment of the globalised economic and political order that is in crisis, and may be in terminal decline.

Life, it seems, has not done much to prepare Sunak for the task he faces on the world stage of plotting a path on Britain’s behalf in a multipolar world. Ukraine, nationalism, energy shortages, climate crisis, Chinese power and refugees are among the issues he must navigate, all of them refracted through Brexit and economic downturn. Sunak is not alone among western or British political leaders in having to adjust to radically changed times. But his inexperience showed in the speech he delivered this week at the lord mayor’s banquet in London’s Guildhall.

15/11/2022

UK's reputation has taken a knock, admits Rishi Sunak

The UK's reputation has taken "a bit of a knock" this year, Rishi Sunak has admitted, as he vowed to restore economic stability.

The prime minister said tax rises and spending cuts in Thursday's autumn statement were needed to fix a "difficult" situation but it would done be done in a "fair" way.

Critics of his approach fear it could worsen an expected UK recession.

But Mr Sunak said reducing inflation was the "number one challenge".

Speaking to the BBC's Political Editor Chris Mason at the G20 summit in Indonesia, he said it was "in everyone's long-term interest" to reduce UK government debt.

He added it was important to "limit" mortgage repayments for homeowners, which have risen in the wake of September's mini-budget.

"The best way to do that is to get a grip of our borrowing levels, and have our debt on a sustainable basis falling," he added.

11/11/2022

The new helmsman at Downing Street
Rishi Sunak assumes the United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister in what appears a continuing political spectacle. He succeeded Liz Truss who had spent barely 45 days in office before resigning under the full weight of inability to manage her country’s public affairs. On October 25, Sunak, 42, became the new occupant of 10 Downing Street, London. He is the third to do so within a period of fewer than two months.

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Rishi Sunak is a British politician who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party since October 2022. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2020 to 2022 and Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2019 to 2020.