After Burnham's 'rip-offs' crackdown, what more could PM do to help us save money?
Guardian analysis listing six additional UK consumer-protection reforms — covering ticket fees, energy direct debits, shrinkflation, contact details, parking fines and insurance renewals — beyond Andy Burnham's announced crackdown.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
Hilary Osborne widens the frame beyond Burnham's planned ban on fake discounts and easier subscription cancellations to six other friction points where British households quietly lose money, from booking fees on tickets to insurers pricing loyalty.
A politician named Andy Burnham is cracking down on sneaky money tricks, and this article lists six more things he could fix — like fair concert ticket prices, food packets secretly shrinking, and unfair parking tickets. Most are small everyday annoyances that quietly cost families real money.
Analysis
£3.2bn sitting in energy accounts
Osborne cites Ofgem figures showing UK energy providers held £3.2bn of customer money in credit to March, with the average household carrying a £135 surplus. Direct-debit customers who budget carefully can still be told to increase monthly payments by their supplier, with the burden of refusal placed on them. The argument is regulatory rather than technological: cap direct-debit rises at the rate of the price-cap change, or bar them entirely once a customer's surplus covers a set percentage of expected bills.
The detail matters because working capital for energy suppliers is, in effect, drawn interest-free from cautious bill-payers at exactly the point in the year when those households are most disciplined. A simple protection would transfer that float back where it belongs.
Six fixes beyond Burnham's crackdown
The unifying thread across Osborne's list is friction — companies extracting money from customers who lack the time or leverage to push back. Six interventions sit on the menu: a ban on "transaction" or "order processing" fees added to concert tickets because retailers don't levy equivalent surcharges on goods; a curb on direct-debit hikes; mandatory "new pack size" labels on shrinkflated groceries; a rule forcing every company to put a working phone number on its homepage; acceleration of the long-delayed parking code of practice; and a requirement that insurers quote existing customers their best available price at renewal.
None demands new infrastructure. Each already exists somewhere — in adjacent sectors, in trade bodies, or in announced-but-unenforced consultations. The renewal-insurance example is especially telling: disclosure rules are in force, yet the annual cycle of phoning the insurer, shopping around, or threatening to leave persists because the cheapest deal is still gated by behaviour rather than by default.
Lessons from France and Austria
On shrinkflation the article points to France and Austria, where regulations force clearer disclosure when pack sizes shrink at unchanged or higher prices. A UK equivalent would simply push the informational burden back onto the manufacturer instead of leaving shoppers to decode why a familiar carton holds less than it used to.
Parking reform is the messiest item: a code of practice sat in draft for years and was never introduced, while a planned nationwide aggregator app has been "watered down". Insurance faces a parallel stalemate. Osborne's catalogue is less a radical manifesto than a reminder that announced consumer reforms tend to die in consultation, and that unfinished rules leave the most passive households subsidising everyone else's hustle.
Key points
- Andy Burnham has announced bans on fake discounts and easier subscription cancellation as his core consumer package.
- Osborne cites Ofgem data showing £3.2bn held in customer credit, averaging £135 per household, while suppliers still ask for higher direct debits.
- Booking fees on concert tickets draw the comparison that retailers do not charge equivalent "transaction" or "order processing" add-ons.
- France and Austria already mandate clearer shrinkflation warnings; Osborne proposes a UK "new pack size" label.
- A parking code of practice has sat in draft for years and a planned nationwide aggregator app has been watered down, leaving drivers exposed to disputed fines.
If implemented, the six reforms would lower day-to-day costs for UK households without waiting for large fiscal interventions, and the French and Austrian shrinkflation templates suggest disclosure rules can be copied quickly. A successful parking code of practice, in particular, could remove a recurring complaint category almost overnight.
Several of the reforms Osborne highlights have already stalled in consultation — the parking code and the aggregator app were both diluted before reaching consumers — and insurer renewal rules already exist without ending the loyalty penalty. Without enforcement teeth, the package risks joining the long queue of UK consumer-protection announcements that never quite bite.
