Afternoon summary
Time to wrap up. Here are the main developments…
The boss of Thames Water has stepped down with immediate effect weeks after being forced to give up her bonus over the company’s environmental performance.
The company said that Sarah Bentley would leave the board on Tuesday, but will continue to support her interim replacement until a new full-time boss can be found.
UK supermarkets have denied profiteering in the cost of living crisis. Representatives of the Big Four supermarkets told MPs their profits had been hit by soaring costs.
Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons and also backed the idea of allowing motorists to find the cheapest petrol and diesel in their area through a ‘transparent’ app.
But they pushed back against calls for caps on essential food, saying it wouldn’t work.
The UK’s largest mobile and broadband companies have been accused of fuelling “greedflation” after pushing through the biggest round of price hikes for more than 30 years.
The House of Lords have heard that Brexit has pushed up UK inflation, having caused a shortage of skilled workers who returned to Europe.
The Lords also heard that the Bank of England deserved a black mark for its recent struggles to handle inflation.
1/3 Lord Macpherson of Earl's Court, former @hmtreasury Perm Sec: “The only blackmark I would put against operational independence has been what has happened recently. The problems the bank has been grappling with are global.” #BankOfEngland inquiry
— Lords Economic Affairs Committee (@LordsEconCom) June 27, 2023
2/3 “Every developed country has been dealing with higher inflation. Britain has its own issues which may or may not have added to inflation. It’s fair to say that all central banks perhaps loosened policy too much for fear that we were going into a period of deflation.”
— Lords Economic Affairs Committee (@LordsEconCom) June 27, 2023
3/3 “We’re now dealing with the consequences which largely arise from supply side shocks, but I would argue that excessively loose monetary policy kept in place for too long has probably facilitated higher inflation than there would otherwise have been across the western world.”
— Lords Economic Affairs Committee (@LordsEconCom) June 27, 2023
Lord Macpherson of Earl's Court, former @hmtreasury Perm Sec: “I think Bank of England independence has been a success, by which I mean the outcomes since the Bank became operational independent have been better than if the Bank had not been independent.” #BankOfEngland inquiry pic.twitter.com/8fYPhoCIul
— Lords Economic Affairs Committee (@LordsEconCom) June 27, 2023
Over in the eurozone, corporate profits were the biggest factor driving up prices last year and will be again in 2023 unless businesses are forced to absorb rising wage bills, the head of the European Central Bank has said.
The growth of electric car production in Britain is under threat from a Brexit “cliff edge” in January unless the EU agrees to delay new trade rules until 2027, industry leaders have warned.
Customers are appalled by the massive price increases for their mobile and broadband services:
