TINKERING at the edges of the cost-of-living crisis with Tory “talking shops” is not enough to make a difference, Unite has said.

The union’s warning came ahead of today’s meeting between Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the Competition and Markets Authority and energy, water and communications watchdogs. 

Mr Hunt will “press them on whether there is a profiteering problem and what they are doing about it,” a Treasury source claimed. 

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, who has long argued that “rampant corporate profiteering” is driving 40-year-high inflation, said: “Here we have a tacit acknowledgement that Britain is in the grip of a profiteering crisis.

“But we need to go way beyond talking shops before we can be convinced the Chancellor is serious about tackling [the problem].” 

The union has also warned about food profiteering as supermarket bosses, during a grilling by MPs yesterday, were forced to deny jacking up prices.

Business and trade committee chairman Darren Jones asked Gordon Gafa, commercial director at Tesco, which reported £2.03 billion in profits last year, how the company was making “hundreds of millions of pounds in additional profit.”

Mr Gafa denied that profits had increased year on year.