The prime minister Andy Burnham has committed to banning retailers from advertising products under misleading deals and to banning auto-renewing subscriptions within months.

In an op-ed for the Guardian newspaper, Burnham said his government will protect consumers from “phoney bargains” by cracking down on how retailers can price cuts on products.

“If something is advertised as half price, it should actually be half price,” Burnham wrote.

Misleading tactics include advertising a product as being offered at a significant reduction compared to a price it was only ever briefly sold at, or implying the new price point is time-limited when it is actually the new base price for a product.

In June, the consumer group Which? published research that found “was/now” pricing can be highly misleading for consumers. For example, Which? found 87 per cent of TVs were advertised under a “was” price that was not its most recent prior to the sale.

In 2025, Australia’s consumer watchdog warned of such deceptive tactics being used to mislead consumers for Black Friday.

The government will launch a consultation on how the practice should be enforced in the autumn.

New rules will also come into force in January 2027 requiring businesses to make subscriptions as easy to cancel as they are to sign up for and preventing them from automatically renewing without first notifying customers.

Burnham has brought the measures, which were announced under the former prime minister Keir Starmer and intended to apply by spring 2027, forward by at least three months.

The prime minister added that government figures show UK consumers pay £1.6 billion per year for subscriptions they no longer want. He said the new rules would save an average of £14 per month for each unwanted subscription.

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