Protecting consumers should be key election promise in 2024: Rocio Concha

With all major political parties heading to their respective party conferences, recent speculation over an earlier-than-planned election will focus minds even more intensely on the prize of governing.

Which? believes that there are two big areas which are likely to be battlegrounds at the next election where consumers are often overlooked - and where parties of all stripes should prioritise if voters are to feel better off and safer and to live more sustainably for the years ahead.

The first of these should be to reverse the fall in living standards by having a clearer focus on the ‘demand side’ of the economy.

While inflation may have peaked, any new government will inherit a reality in which consumers are paying much higher prices - for household bills and for the weekly shop, for example - than they were used to just a few years ago. The consequence for consumers isn’t just a blow to their purchasing power, but also their physical and mental wellbeing. Our evidence suggests almost half of consumers are currently worried and/or stressed on a daily basis - and political parties will need to conjure up compelling ways of supporting them through this extended period of financial difficulty.

It’s always vital for consumers to feel they have the right protections when paying for products and services, but at a time when so many of us simply cannot afford to squander precious pounds, it’s even more important. And yet when it comes to purchasing ‘big ticket’ items, such as a holiday, consumers are too often left exposed should things go wrong.

With successive summers of disruption at our airports, countless travellers were left stranded when flights were cancelled. Instead of upholding their side of the bargain, many airlines flouted consumer law and disregarded passengers’ rights - leaving them high and dry and out of pocket. A future government serious about protecting consumers will give regulators, such as the Civil Aviation Authority, tougher enforcement powers to crack down on misbehaving firms.

Second, crack down on crimes against consumers - far too often viewed as secondary to more ‘traditional’ types of crime.

Our increasingly digital world has brought myriad benefits to consumers: we have access to so much more information, products and services now than ever before. But there remain significant drawbacks - not least when it comes to the exponential rise of fraud - by far the country’s biggest crime. Far from places to connect with friends and family or share pictures, the internet has become a hunting ground for ruthless scammers intent on stealing our money. From bogus get-rich-quick schemes on social media platforms with over a billion users, to the sale of dangerous products on some of the world’s most well-known online marketplaces, consumers risk financial loss just by ‘logging on’.

It’s only right to expect that a consumer purchasing a product online has the same protections that they would enjoy on the high street. Yet time and again, our research has exposed online retailers selling products which are at best faulty and at worst potentially lethal.

“Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” was a famous political slogan, uttered at a party conference nearly thirty years ago to the day. Since then, many of those causes have become much more sophisticated. It’s time consumer protections kept pace.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Rocio Concha is ​Director of Policy and Advocacy for Which?