Consumer Affairs

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Thursday 11th September 2025 Westminster Hall

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered consumer affairs.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. You will be familiar with the expression “knowing the price of everything, but the value of nothing”. Perhaps that was yesteryear, or possibly yesterday, but today I want to say this. UK consumers are now living in a land of confusion; nothing is what it seems. In fact, a staggering 82% of the British public feel that they are paying more but getting less. Products are not what they were, and services are not all they seem. Prices are not even the same between the same company’s stores—and whether in store or online, the advent of new technologies, such as algorithmic pricing, brings further opacity.

Let me turn to a simple item. Every day, so many individuals get a meal deal, and they might get a bag of crisps in that meal deal. I opened up one of those bags of crisps just the other day and I found 20 crisps in a bag of crisps that cost a pound. That filled just 40% of the volume of the bag. When I put in for the debate, I said to colleagues in the Chamber, “When did you last try to book a flight? Don’t tell me: when you went on the portal, you looked up the flight and it said, ‘Just two flights remaining!’” Everyone just smiled at me. They knew exactly what I was talking about. We are just about to check out on that flight and, woah, the price has just increased. Products are packaged so that we cannot see or gauge the contents. Labelling is deliberately so opaque that we are not aware of the true contents.

Today, I will argue that British consumers are getting a raw deal. They feel they are being ripped off—they know it. How many times have I listened to supermarket chief executives saying that the consumer wants choice, while at the same time those companies make any choice comparison virtually impossible? I am not even talking apples and oranges; I am talking about comparing oranges with oranges or apples with apples. It is all produce that would be bought by weight, but it is often sold by quantity instead, and the sizes vary. Some things are priced per kilo; others, in adjacent baskets, are sold per 100 grams. Mental maths is needed, but why?

We have not even got to quality. Elsewhere we see products that are wrapped and labelled, so we cannot see the entire contents, as they are partially masked, and there are products that shrink and shrivel in size from one year to the next. Brands are happy to exclaim when they promote something with 10% or 20% extra free, but they never tell us when they have shrunk the product by 10%, 20% or 30% or when they have made changes to the quality of the ingredients. Of course we have regulators, but if we ask any consumer, they will tell us that nobody is standing up for them. For years, we have lived in Rip-off Britain, and it is time that the Government appointed a consumer champion.

In the time I have, I want to focus on the grocery sector, supermarkets and other retailers’ variable, opaque or misleading pricing strategies, and other sectors too. I will also consider the practice of dynamic and algorithmic pricing and subscription traps, before turning to the regulatory landscape. I could also talk about water bills, insurance premiums and so many other sectors, but let me start with groceries, because of course they are one of the main constituents of every household’s cost of living.

In June 2025 in a survey by Which?, 94% of people cited the price of their food shop as the reason for their cost of living increasing. According to the same research organisation, trust in the food and grocery sector has fallen to the lowest level in 12 years. The Food Standards Agency said in its research that 91% of consumers were concerned about food prices.

We are talking about products packaged so that we cannot see their contents and labelling deliberately so opaque that we are not aware of the contents. Other constituents complain about shrinkflation. Indeed, a Which? survey in 2023 found that a huge 77% of shoppers have noticed shrinkflation in their shops—products getting smaller while the price creeps up or even rockets. Fast-moving consumer goods are an obvious area. You cannot imagine the years when I was growing up, Dame Siobhain, but back then a Mars Bar was pretty sizeable. If we look at one today, and it is the same with a bar of Dairy Milk, the size is a fraction of what it was.

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Not to mention Wagon Wheels.

[Matt Western]

There are other products available, Dame Siobhain, but I will not give an entire list of them. Whatever someone’s guilty pleasure is, though, the products that they have grown up with and loved are not what they were.

Even tubes of toothpaste in boxes, despite appearing to be a similar size to the product bought a few months ago or a couple of years ago—whenever it was—have been reduced in size from 100 ml to 75 ml. Pats of butter were 250 grams when I was growing up. Then they were reduced to 225 grams and now they are 180 grams. Then there are packets of digestive biscuits; I think we are all familiar with those. I will not go into particular brands, but they were recently reduced in size from 433 grams to 400 grams, with no indication that they had been reduced, other than a discreet numeric tucked away on the packaging, where it cannot be found. Whatever the product, the same applies.

Of course, nearly all of us rely on supermarkets for our groceries, but we are not happy. In 2023, Which? conducted a survey of more than 2,000 UK adults and found that two thirds of them felt that supermarkets were ripping people off through the prices in their convenience stores, which are often more expensive than the larger stores and rarely stock budget items at all.

Every year for four years in my constituency of Warwick and Leamington, I have been buying a basket of products in a supermarket’s in-town store and its out-of-town store, in order to compare the prices. The two stores are owned by the same company: it happens to be Tesco, but I have also just done it for Sainsbury’s as well. I wanted to see what the discrepancies were by buying the mainstream, everyday products that households depend on. I am sure that I could also talk about Morrisons, Aldi, Asda or whatever supermarket it may be; I do not mean to simply identify the two supermarkets that I mentioned before.

I buy the products within an hour of each other on the same day, so that no one can say, “Oh well, it was a different day,” or, “It was a different delivery,” or whatever it might be. I also do my own market research. The price discrepancies are shocking and appear arbitrary. The worst case was a bottle of wine that was 60% more expensive in the Tesco Metro store versus Tesco’s own superstore. That is incredible but true.

There are other examples. Sainsbury’s sells the identical bleach in its express store for a 38% mark-up on the price in its main store, and it adds a premium of up to 11% for basic items such as cornflakes, eggs and biscuits. As I say, Tesco was no better, as it charged an additional 39% for apples in its Metro store and 27% more for bananas. At £3.20, a pat of butter was 64% more expensive in the express store in the heart of Leamington, right in the centre of the town, than in the superstore, which is not a mile away, where it was £1.95.

I will leave you with one key fact, Dame Siobhain. As I said, 94% of people recognise that groceries are a major driver of their cost of living inflation. I wanted to look at the same basket, going back in time. In 2021, the basket that I bought then cost £28. Four years on— today—it costs £38, which is £10 more expensive from a base of £28. These findings from the last four years are substantiated by Which? research. It found that three quarters—75%—of consumers said that they find the price of convenience store food too expensive compared with the price in larger supermarkets, and nearly half—45%—struggle to find affordable food in convenience stores.

On the Business and Trade Committee, we recently held an inquiry into this issue and we asked retailers about these price differentials. They cited the different cost base for their operations. I used to work in business; I worked in a corporate for 24 years. Of course, I appreciate that there is a different cost base, but the same logic could be applied to a rural store or a small town store versus a major town store, or we could compare a different cost base between the north of the country and the south of the country, or between different regions.

I appreciate that rents and labour costs vary, as do disposable incomes and weekly expenditure. When we put that to the supermarkets, Sainsbury’s said it charges

“a slight premium to reflect the increased cost”.

That “slight premium” is on average 8%, but I gave the example of 60% for a bottle of wine and the huge mark-up of 64% on a pat of butter. These are everyday products. I do not buy the supermarkets’ argument. First, they never used to differentiate between stores decades ago; there was a national price. Secondly, there is a big social injustice here. More often than not, those stores are the only choice for the elderly and infirm, or for students and others who do not have easy access to good public transport or affordable private mobility. One constituent wrote to me last week and said:

“I am someone who is affected by the inflated price of food and goods in Tesco Metro, The Parade, Leamington Spa. This is my local shop which is the easiest one for me to access. I consider it wrong that I have to pay more than if I shopped at the big superstore in Warwick. I am a pensioner on a limited income so every penny counts.”

Let me look further into opaque pricing. The Competition and Markets Authority in 2023 found that supermarkets allow “unhelpful inconsistencies”. I suggest that it is incredibly helpful for the big retailers, who confuse and perhaps manipulate consumers. I recognise that the Price Marking Order 2004 has recently been updated to address some of these problems, and the CMA and trading standards should take necessary enforcement action when they are presented with evidence of misleading pricing practices. As I understand it, from next April we will see improved industry practices, so that comparisons are much easier and enforcement action is taken against businesses that are not compliant. These big brands are built on trust, but they have all the power versus the consumer.

It is not just groceries or supermarkets; in any shop, products may be plastered with “was” and “now” labels, claiming discounts. The same Which? investigation in June this year uncovered questionable and dodgy pricing tactics at Sports Direct that it alleges may break the law. Researchers analysed the prices of 160 different products sold on the Sports Direct website and found examples where the savings suggested by the higher reference point—the recommended retail price—did not appear genuine. For 58 of the 160 products, Which? found no retailer selling them at or above the Sports Direct reference price. Under existing consumer law, Sports Direct could therefore be involved, as I understand it, in misleading actions.

Elsewhere, Which? found electronics retailers using sneaky “was…now” pricing practices that mislead shoppers by exaggerating discounts. In an analysis of televisions sold by major UK retailers, more than half—56% of cases —had a “was” price that was not the most recent price charged before the promotion, which can create the illusion of bigger discounts than in reality. As a result of those misleading pricing strategies, Which? researchers found that 84% of consumers do not trust these claims.

It is not just about products; it is in the services sector as well. Turning to tickets and bookings, dynamic pricing exploits consumers. There is pressure at checkout and no transparency about what is happening, be it trains, hotels, airlines or gigs. I mentioned flights earlier, and talked about the “two seats left”. Airlines argue that what they are doing is in keeping with demand, but I argue that they seek to confuse consumers.

How many of us, maybe in the last few months, have tried to book a summer holiday? We think we have booked the luggage and x, y, z, but it is not clear. We are pressured into buying more luggage capacity and into additional expenditure. The same applies to hotels, which always have “three rooms left”. We start the process and then the price changes at checkout. It has happened to me, and I am sure to everyone who is watching this debate. The most egregious examples have been flight tickets to major football matches. Back in 2019, a flight to Madrid was typically £50. As soon as the champions league final was announced, it surged to £750 to £1,000 for a seat. Fans rightly described that as shameless greed.

The same applies to tickets for gigs. There was a huge public outcry at the seedy scam, just last summer, that was Oasis and Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster also came before the Select Committee. Which? saw evidence that fans were shown one ticket price when they were queuing for tickets, only to have that price taken away at the last second and replaced with a far higher, unexpected ticket price when the page reloaded. However, the consumer was committed; they had spent an hour or longer on the system, and the system knew it. We could say, “Computer says yes”, but at twice the price or more. In one example, the cost of standing tickets, originally advertised to the consumer for £148.50, surged to £337.50 each due to in-demand pricing. That meant that four standing tickets could cost an eye-watering £1,400, once service and order-processing fees were included.

I turn to subscription traps. We have all been stuck in unwanted subscriptions, and I am happy that the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 has given new rights to consumers. Too many are trapped in subscriptions, and it will help to ease that burden. I am proud that the Labour Government are being proactive, with a consultation on subscriptions that closed in February. I ask the Minister, however, what assessment has the Department made of the responses thus far? I urge him to do all he can to back consumers against unscrupulous firms that use those subscription models.

Why does all this matter? Products on the shelves are being deliberately presented in a misleading way. It is becoming a wild west for consumers, and I fear that things will only get worse with real-time pricing changes, for example, through electronic price labels on shelves. Ultimately, there is a power imbalance between big brands and consumers, because the brands and retailers have the data. I would argue that they are profiteering while vulnerable people are being exploited; trust is at a record low. It seems that the CMA is not doing enough for consumers and trading standards are under-resourced.

I will talk briefly about some recommendations that are both simple and complex. There are specific reforms that we can introduce, and they are championed, for example, by Which?. They include a new ban on using dynamic pricing to increase a price once a transaction has begun. The Government could also make life easier for consumers by ensuring that shops display clear and consistent unit pricing to allow people to make a more informed choice. Greater responsibility could be moved to national regulators for the most complex businesses operating nationally. Strategic regional and national hubs could be created with a critical mass of resources and expertise to tackle local crime and to proactively address consumer harms.

Trains and train tickets are another example. A constituent wrote that there should

“be limits introduced on maximum pricing—for example for people going to work, it is just stupid pricing and is pricing people out of commuting.”

His dad used to travel from Leamington to London every day for work in the ’80s and ’90s, but that is no longer affordable. He suggests scrapping peak fares on nationalised trains, and it is interesting that in recent days, Scotland appears to have announced that it is looking to do that.

I also ask the Minister to consider banning dynamic pricing in certain sectors where the market conditions lead to time pressure and a power imbalance. Perhaps more simply, I ask for trading standards to be given more funding and more officers to investigate. The CMA needs to use its power to investigate with vigour, so it also needs additional resourcing. There are clear laws in place to prevent consumers from being ripped off in this way, and the CMA and trading standards should take the necessary enforcement action when they are presented with evidence of misleading pricing practices, but we need someone on the side of consumers to call out rip-offs, scams and basic profiteering. I want to introduce the idea of a consumer champion who has the power to call out those rip-offs and to stand up on behalf of consumers against big business.

In conclusion, I want to see a Government who are more on the side of the consumers. Of course we need successful businesses, but there is such a big power imbalance right now and it is only going to get worse. Unscrupulous firms are profiteering while consumers are getting ripped off and do not trust businesses. We need to bring order back to a chaotic market, so consumers have more information and are more empowered. We need to rebalance the asymmetry that exists between consumers and businesses. The Government should urgently look at what legislative reforms they can introduce to provide greater protections for consumers, because constituents all too often get a raw deal while firms profiteer.

We must make change, and we could make it quickly. We need to stand up more for consumers by saying no to clear profiteering, the shrinking of basic elements, price gouging and dodgy pricing strategies, and yes to transparent prices, fair markets and the trusted brands that we all used to know and love. We need someone to stand up and be on the consumer’s side. We need a consumer champion.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate. I can see they are doing so, which is good.