Jeremy Hunt to ask UK regulators to investigate firms exploiting price rises

Chancellor to meet watchdogs to discuss claims that company profiteering is stoking inflation

• Business live: Primark-owner lifts profit forecast after price rises

Jeremy Hunt will ask industry regulators what they are doing about any companies exploiting rampant inflation by raising prices.

The chancellor will meet the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and the watchdogs for energy, water and communications on Wednesday. He will press them on whether there is a profiteering problem in their sectors and what they are doing about it, according to a Treasury source.