Inquiry that’s not worth a bean

Arisks – people being exploited by unscrupulous salesmen or splashing out on luxuries – have been slammed as nannying Jeremiahs who don’t respect the public’s ability to make their own decisions. I do have some fears over this issue, but time will tell.

However, while I do worry about whether some people are sophisticated enough to avoid being ripped off by sharp financiers over pensions, I am not too worried about whether they can be trusted to buy a couple of tins of baked beans without a public inquiry. supermarkets have pulled the wool over consumers’ eyes in the past, they stand little chance of doing so now.

Now don’t get me wrong. The supermarkets are not saints and have long been masters at using smoke and mirrors on the shelf. The rules about when they can claim a product has been discounted are open to trickery and we are all familiar with those products which somehow seem to be ‘on special offer’ all the time. I don’t think many of us are fooled into paying significantly over the odds on a regular basis.

The launch of an ombudsman service for retailing, which we also report this week, should bring some remedies for egregious cases of trickery or other forms of bad service, though of course the effectiveness of what is being proposed will have to be proven in practice.

The whole issue reflects on a more general question about how we think as consumers we are treated and how sophisticated we are at avoiding sharp practice. As a nation we seem to be torn in contradictory directions.

For example, the plans to liberalise the pensions system and allow savers to access tens of thousands of pounds of their retirement pot have been hailed as a valuable new freedom.

Those who have warned of the RE our supermarkets ripping us off in a massive scandal of confusing discounts and promotions? Is the consumer group Which? right to file its ‘supercomplaint’ against the grocers demanding a competition inquiry into these practices? The short answer is, no.

Tesco’s huge loss last week may be the worst we will see from the industry but the tough times are far from over. As we report today the outlook for supermarkets’ profits in 2015 is grim. The listed British grocery groups will make trading profits of less than £1billion this year, down a dramatic 75 per cent from their peak in 2012. This should hardly be surprising – the fast-growing relative newcomers like Aldi and Lidl are giving the big boys a real run for their money.

Official data from the Office for National Statistics shows that food prices are down by 3 per cent over the last year. If the