Hard-pressed shoppers have been warned to prepare for continuing price hikes by the chairman of one of the UK's biggest supermarkets. Asda chairman Lord Stuart Rose has called for more government intervention to ease the pressure on consumers and he claimed that food prices would remain high.
The Tory peer said he expected shopping bills to rise even further after inflation on many essential items neared six per cent. He said: “They are going to go higher and they are going to stay high for quite some time, I fear.” He told told the BBC “it’s going to be very hard” and “I see no quick solution to this”.
Lord Rose said Asda had “dropped and locked” prices of some key goods, but warned consumers will have to make tough choices about what they do or don’t buy, reports LeedsLive.
He added: “I will personally look at my own behaviour - what things I need and what things I don't need. We have just got rid in the UK of Covid… and we’ve now got to deal with a new phenomenon which is new to many people which is inflation.
"We haven’t seen serious inflation in this country for 40-odd years. That inflation is now coupled with a slowing down of the economy and an … almost inevitable increase in interest rates, starting next week.”
The costs of food and non-alcoholic drinks rose by 5.9 per cent year-on-year to March, according to Office for National Statistics' figures. Lord Rose added: "The Government can't sort out all the problems but the Government can do a few things. It could talk to industry.
“It could talk to the food retailers to make sure that we are cutting out every extra cost." Labour has demanded a £600 cut in energy bills to help families funded by a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas company profits.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the cost of living had been the "number one issue" on the doorstep while campaigning for the local elections, adding that the Conservatives have said "absolutely nothing" about it.
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