Sir Alan Sugar has blasted oil firms, including BP, and told how he believes they should be subject to greater regulation.
The entrepreneur, 75, has been left angry by companies raising their prices, leading to increasing profits.
He said: “Corporations, like for example British Petroleum at the moment, for some reason or other have stuck the price of petrol up to some astronomical level and are rolling in loads and loads of profits and all that.
“The government should step in and say ‘you know, this is kind of like restrictive practices, if you like.
“There’s no reason for you to whack the price up as it is’. The government needs to come in and control people exploiting things.”
Sugar, who is a member of the House of Lords, was speaking to students at the Oxford Union after being asked about the cost of living crisis and rising inflation.
Last week it was revealed BP raked in profits of £6.9billion in three months as households struggle with crippling energy bills.
The sum was three times as much as last year and equates to £880 a second.
The figures were revealed after rival Shell and British Gas owner Centrica announced combined profits of nearly £11billion, following energy costs soaring.
And it brought the quarterly profit tally for the top Western energy firms to £48billion.
Get all the latest news sent to your inbox. Sign up for the free Mirror newsletter
Lord Sugar added: “I think specific industries for example should be audited by the government and one of them should be British Petroleum and Shell and people like that, where the government can have mandatory audit as to them exploiting things.
“It’s no good sticking up the duty on petrol because all that does is punish you, it doesn’t punish them.
“And even if you do increase the duty on petrol the likes of you are not going to see the benefit on it because it’ll get eaten up paying off debts somewhere else that the government has incurred.
“You need to nip it in the bud at the companies that are taking disadvantage of us at the moment.”
