Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has warned that the government’s proposed price caps on certain food products will lead to shortages and queues.

Speaking on GB News, Sir Jacob said: “History gives us some very clear lessons, and one is that prices and incomes policies don’t work.

“In AD 301 Diocletian, famous for his persecutions of Christians, introduced a list of 900 set prices that he wanted to enforce, and if you disobeyed him, you would be executed.

“It didn’t work, prices went up, goods weren’t sold, corruption came in. The same thing happened, if we become a little bit more modern, when Charlemagne was Holy Roman Emperor, in 806 he also tried to limit prices.

“And in our very own country, in 1351 Edward III introduced the Statute of Labourers, which limited wages.

“Wage and price controls go hand in glove because they’re the two sides of the same devalued coin; that if you limit prices you have to follow up by limiting wages. Why does it never work?

“It never works because the seller of goods will ultimately not sell them at a loss. Why? Because he can’t afford to. He goes out of business if he were to do that, and therefore the goods just don’t come into the market.

“There are only ever two ways of determining how goods are distributed: one is rationing by price, and the other is rationing by queue. In the Second World War, we rationed by queue, the Soviet Union rationed by queue.

“But in a free market economy it is much more sensible to ration by price. And this also ensures that supply and demand ultimately matches, because people will buy what they can afford.

“And if you want to bear down on inflation, setting prices and incomes will not do it. It will simply stop goods becoming available for sale.

“The Scottish scheme is even barmier than the one proposed for England, because small companies won’t be affected. So, you’ll find that the supermarket stops selling butter, and you have to pay a 20 to 40% premium in small shops. It will put prices up.

“What’s being proposed in England is only half mad. It’s suggesting that the government gets rid of some high-cost regulations that the supermarkets would then benefit from if they freeze prices.

“But if only they realise that getting rid of these high-cost regulations in and of itself is a good thing to do.

“So what we need to do is learn from Diocletian, learn from Charlemagne, learn from the great Edward III, that prices and incomes policies never work, they always fail, they reduce consumer choice, ensure that we have to queue, they make the standard of living lower.

“Let’s hope that the government has the wit and wisdom not to follow this route, and that the SNP finds it doesn’t have the legal power to do it.”