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Hello and welcome to the programme.

For anyone who drives, for work or pleasure,

there is something new to talk about,

a topic that can be added to the weather,

or more recently COVID.

It is, of course, the price of petrol and diesel.

They are both extraordinarily expensive.

Hi, I'm Kirsty. I run a local plumbing and heating company, a local tubercomstead, and the fuel costs are just rising so much that it's starting to

affect our business. 196.9 per litre for diesel and 189.9 for unleaded. That's just crazy. If we're near a fuel station

that's a cheaper price, we'll go in there and top up. If we're near a supermarket, they're often

cheaper, so we'll nip in there and fill up. But we're looking around 160 pounds to fill up a diesel

van. It needs to come down. We can't sustain this.

It's just too expensive. Kirstie there, giving voice to the feelings of millions.

Now petrol retailers, the ones who actually charge these prices, attract all sorts of criticism.

They must be coining it in. The business secretary has his eyes on the four courts too.

Last week, he asked the UK's competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, the CMA,

to investigate competition in petrol retailing with an allegation that the 5P cut in duty in March

had not been passed on quickly enough. Now, while that is one narrative

that petrol retailers are ripping us off, there's another story too, which is that they're all,

or have been, slowly disappearing because the economics of it don't quite work. So, while the

CMA do there, swift review into the industry, let us do our own. Take a closer look at petrol retailing

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