UK Competition Agencies Prioritise Efforts to Tackle Cost of Living Pressures

Making markets work for consumers is a core mission for UK agencies with competition and consumer protection responsibilities.

This task assumes heightened importance in the context of current cost-of-living pressures.  In this post, we discuss recent regulatory interventions that have focused on these issues.

Background

The Office for National Statistics reported that “the price of consumer goods and services rose at the fastest rate in four decades in the year to October 2022” and the Consumer Prices Index rose by 8.7% in the year to May 2023.  Against this backdrop, in its 2023/2024 Annual Plan, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) highlighted “the rising cost-of-living” as one of the “macro forces set to make the work of the CMA even more vital”. 

On 12 May 2023, the UK Government published a consultation on its strategic steer to the CMA.  The Government expects the CMA to “prioritise action that addresses cost of living challenges” and “prioritis[e] markets where consumers spend large proportions of their income, at all levels of the supply chain”.  In response, on 15 May 2023, the CMA published an update on what it is doing to “help contain rising cost of living pressures” in the road fuel and grocery sectors, which Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s CEO, characterized as “critical” and “essential” for consumers.

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