UK prime minister Rishi Sunak has backed off plans to ask supermarkets to impose a voluntary price cap on basic goods.

A report from the Telegraph last month indicated that Sunak was planning on requesting the voluntary price cap. The report drew a negative industry reaction with the British Retail Consortium (BRC) arguing that such measures would not bring about any significant changes or provide real support for cost-conscious Brits.

In comments to Reuters, a spokesperson for the government confirmed that any such plan would not go ahead, saying: "The government has never been considering imposing price caps. We continue to engage with supermarkets about the best way to support consumers.”

An additional Telegraph report this week said that the government is looking at other ways to tackle food inflation, though officials have told retailers that there will be no intervention in pricing.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) however is taking a somewhat sterner approach, and last month said that it was looking at supermarkets’ earnings to identify which supply chains it needed to examine more closely.

John Allen, the chairman of the country’s largest grocer Tesco, earlier this year told the BBC that it was "entirely possible" that some suppliers are taking advantage of consumer expectations of increased costs to hike prices higher than the rate of inflation. The company’s chief exec Ken Murphy this week said that he is seeing signs of easing inflation.

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