Defence Secretary warns supermarkets not to exploit Iran crisis on prices

John Healey has warned supermarkets not to use the Iran conflict as cover for price rises. GB News reports he is ready to "clamp down" on price-gouging, while the Independent says he warned retailers not to "rip off" Britons as the war drives up the cost of living.

The statement assumes two things: that supermarkets have the margin to absorb cost increases, and that they might choose not to. Oil price shocks do feed through to food prices - transport, packaging, fertiliser - but the accusation is that retailers use a crisis to widen margins rather than simply pass on costs. Whether that is happening is an empirical question; the political move is to get the warning in early, so that if prices do rise, the government has a scapegoat ready.

The last time a British government tried formal price controls was under the Prices and Incomes Act. That experiment ended when the policy could not survive contact with inflation. Healey is not proposing statutory controls - this is moral suasion - but the logic is the same: the state knows better than the price signal. If costs genuinely rise and supermarkets hold prices flat, they either absorb losses, cut suppliers' margins, or reduce supply. None of those helps availability.

What to watch: whether grocery price inflation picks up in the next monthly ONS release, and whether the government names a retailer or proposes any actual mechanism. Without one, this is political theatre - a pre-emptive narrative in case the cost of living becomes a problem again.