The Equality Rights Group (ERG)/ Action on Poverty (AOP) have written to the Chief Minister expressing their concern over local price rises on "household goods and groceries" and has called for Government to help prevent "excessive profit-taking".

A statement from ERG/AOP follows below:

In times of economic social stress, such as the one we’re currently living, Government must step in to help citizens and prevent excessive profit-taking,’ Equality Rights Group (ERG)/ Action on Poverty (AOP) has said.

‘We have today written to the Chief Minister expressing our concern at preliminary information we are receiving and which we shall in due course compile to monitor price rises on household goods and groceries in particular. The emerging study’s narrow market focus may not be an accurate reflection of wider trends throughout the marketplace, which could be overall higher or lower in the aggregate, given that attention is more closely noted in household products, with groceries particularly observed. The impacts may be broader than our initial reports indicate, and while we will assess the final data, it is clear that the level of concern now being expressed on this matter across different sectors of our community justify government intervention. At the very least, the high upward trend in the food sector is not only worrying, but widely felt by households, especially in light of falling purchasing power as wages fall behind. On retail pricing policy, the question is whether or not they can be justified in line with established economic indicators, or not.

‘Despite this, consumers are, nonetheless, noticing because there is no way to hide the final cost of routine shopping at the till. Profiteering is a suspicion word whose frequency has been increasing of late.

‘We are therefore requesting Government to take control to avoid what, to all intents and purposes may constitute unwarranted profit-taking surfing on the back of a crisis. A speedy and thorough Government investigation that will separate abuse from justification is needed for the public to be reassured that an increasing price feeding frenzy is not the order of the day.

‘We take note that in the UK, Tesco’s have led a campaign to push back on unjustified price hikes, and major brand names have had to curtail increases they could not credibly explain as a result. It is equally true that smaller producers are by no means immune from the temptation to increase prices beyond what can be properly justified.

‘The Gibraltar Government needs to step in urgently to demand reasonableness and self-control in order to put people’s minds at ease.

‘Though we have been alerting to the impact of economic hardship for three years, it is becoming increasingly evident and clear that the circumstances we have been campaigning on since 2019 are running away beyond the previously most sensitive levels of our society (the vulnerable, the elderly, and the poor), and the indications are one of economic contagion towards a wider, creeping swathe of middle-of-the-road working people.