controversial end to the second ashes series. welcome back to verify life. a watchdog has found that uk drivers paid more for fuel at supermarkets last year because of a lack of competition between retailers. the competition and markets authority says drivers paid an average of an extra six pence a litre for fuel, with diesel 13 pence a litre more expensive. the government is now promising a change in the law to increase competition. simon williams, the rac s fuel spokesperson, gave us this reaction. yes, consumers have been overcharged for some considerable time. the rac has a programme called fuelwatch. we monitor the price of retailfuel but also, crucially, the price of wholesale fuel. and for the last three months, the price of diesel on the wholesale market has been lower than petrol. yet if you go to virtually any forecourt across the uk, you will see diesel being priced above petrol. now, that is simply not right, it s not fair. it doesn t reflect what s going on at al
otherwise you end up with what we call the rocket and the feather prices going up like a rocket in a rising market and falling like a feather in a falling wholesale market. and that s what s happened. so prices have dropped off incredibly since the highs of last year, but retailers haven t reflected that at the pumps. isn t the difficulty, though, that it s all very well to monitor things, it s all very well to have a pump price monitor, to see what prices are in your area, but it doesn t put off those retailers if they want to do this? is there any sort of sanction that s required? yes, that s exactly right. this has to have teeth. so someone needs to be monitoring, the cma or whoever needs to be monitoring the wholesale price of fuel and in relation to what s being charged at the pumps. and if that gap is found to be too great and not reflective of what s actually happening on the wholesale market, then action must be taken. simon williams. the met office has confirmed the uk has s