Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will strengthen the (a) investigatory, (b) enforcement and (c) regulatory powers of the Consumer and Markets Authority to enable that Authority to take more effective action against online (i) price gouging and (ii) misleading claims.

The Competition and Markets Authority have created a COVID-19 taskforce to investigate consumer concerns in light of COVID-19.

The CMA is writing to firms suspected of profiteering to challenge unjustifiable price increases and stands ready to take enforcement action where there is evidence that competition or consumer protection law has been broken.

The Government continues to monitor the situation and is keeping all options under review to tackle these issues.