overnment plans to encourage supermarkets to impose worth caps on meals staples to assist with the price of residing can have no “element of compulsion”, a Cabinet minister has mentioned.

Downing Street is known to be drawing up proposals that will search to get retailers charging the bottom doable quantity for some primary merchandise like bread and milk.

The opt-in scheme, modelled on the same settlement in France, would permit supermarkets to pick out which gadgets they'd cap, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

It might mark the most important intervention on pricing since controls launched by Edward Heath within the Seventies, the paper reported – although No 10 confused any scheme can be voluntary.

Asked in regards to the proposals on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, Health Secretary Steve Barclay mentioned: “My understanding is the Government is working constructively with supermarkets as to how we address the very real concerns around food inflation and the cost of living, and doing so in a way that is also very mindful to the impact on suppliers.”

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Mr Barclay acknowledged small family-run companies would themselves be beneath “significant pressure” and confused that the plans had been “not about any element of compulsion”.

A No 10 supply mentioned the proposal is at “drawing board stage” however wouldn't contain Government-imposed worth controls.

It comes after Chancellor Jeremy Hunt backed rate of interest hikes – even when they danger of plunging the UK into recession – as a way to fight hovering inflation.

Although down from 10.1% in March, the Consumer Prices Index of inflation stays stubbornly excessive at 8.7% in April, whereas specialists have warned that alarmingly costly meals is about to overhaul vitality payments because the “epicentre” of the cost-of-living disaster.

Food costs are anticipated to maintain rising, having already elevated by 19.1% within the yr to March, inserting extra stress on households.