Time to help out! Hunt to order shops to cut prices and banks to help savers

Businesses must pass on any savings from falling costs to shoppers as the country battles the cost-of-living crisis, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will demand this week.

He will meet regulators and insist businesses play a full role in the fight against rising prices.

And he is adamant savers must get a “fair deal” after last week’s hike in interest rates.

The Government is determined to deliver on Rishi Sunak’s goal of halving inflation by the end of the year.

But the Bank of England’s 13th successive increase – to 5 percent – has raised fears in Tory circles that cash-strapped voters will desert the party in next year’s expected election.

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Exclusive polling by Omnisis shows nearly four out of every 10 mortgage-holders (38 percent) fear they could lose their homes.

Seven out of 10 said the Government should “do more to intervene in the mortgage crisis”.  

Chief Secretary to the Treasury John Glen said there would be “no inflation-busting public sector pay rises, no tax cuts funded by borrowing and no state payments towards people’s mortgages”.

Writing for the Sunday Express, he said Mr Hunt will speak to regulators “about making sure businesses are passing on falling costs and playing their part in the fight against inflation”.

The Prime Minister has demanded supermarkets behave in a “fair and responsible way”.

But an ex-Cabinet minister said the public could see Mr Sunak is “overpromising and under-delivering” on the economy, and on his vow to tackle illegal immigration in small boats.

They fear Britain has returned to “boom and bust” economics and householders may find themselves in negative equity.

There is also Tory fury at the Bank of England. Former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey said rate rises “will choke an already fragile recovery and deliver unnecessary pain, as mortgages and loans become unnecessarily unaffordable”.

And a senior backbencher warned that the Chancellor, “appears to have contracted out the management of the British economy to the governor of the Bank of England, who is patently not up to the job”.

Former education minister Andrea Jenkyns said people could be helped through the crisis by “cutting taxes so they can hang on to as much of their earnings as possible”.

YouGov polling gives Labour a 25 point lead over the Tories, who are on 22 percent.

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