Fuel retail market review in the UK – CMA
First published by Author on August 03, 2022 in the following categories: Industry Investigations Latest Pricing and tagged with cma | competition law | fuel | investigations | pricing
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it is conducting an urgent review into the UK fuel retail market at the request of the government.
The review comes at a time with soaring inflation, a cost-of-living crisis and the prices at petrol pumps spiralling out of control. We are all being hit by the increased cost of living, and the government must do all it can to ensure that the people do not suffer and face further hardship.
We welcome the review that is being conducted by the CMA, and we urge the government to step up in supporting people and preventing prices from soaring even further out of control.
About the UK fuel retail market review
The CMA has announced that it is conducting an immediate high-level review over competition in the UK fuel retail market at the request of the government. The CMA announced that the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy wrote to the CMA to request the urgent review given that consumers are facing incredibly challenging times as a result of the cost of energy spiralling out of control.
The review into the fuel retail market sector was announced in June and it is now down to the competition regulator to look into the matters and to hopefully help the government to step in given how much prices are skyrocketing. If competition law is being broken, this will need resolving.
The importance of this review
It goes without saying that the UK fuel retail market review being conducted by the CMA is so important right now. We are already enduring a cost-of-living crisis, with soaring inflation and soaring prices, all off the back of the recent hard times that followed the coronavirus pandemic. The price of petrol at the forecourts has skyrocketed to such an extent that families are being squeezed, which is a significant accumulative factor of how worse off we all are right now.
We can only hope that the urgent review being conducted by the CMA can force prices to come down. The government has an important responsibility to act as quickly as possible to help in this situation, whether this is by ensuring competition is fair, deploying taxes on profits, or allowing for subsidies to help people with the increasing costs.
At a time when people are being told that they must return to work in person after many of us had to work from home as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is obvious as to why the significant squeeze on people with high prices at the forecourts is a serious problem.
One to keep an eye on
The CMA’s UK fuel retail market review will be an important one to keep an eye on as it really affects us all. Not only does it affect the cost of commuting, but increasing fuel prices affect almost every aspect of living at a time when we are already facing higher prices. The cost of our food getting to the supermarkets and the cost of manufacturing and the cost of logistics will all increase off the back of higher fuel prices being passed on to the consumer. It is not sustainable to continue in the way that we are, and the government has an important duty to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.