Manchester mayor faces funding questions over cost-of-living measures
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Andy Burnham's cost-of-living package has drawn fresh scrutiny over how it will be funded, with opposition figures branding his planned August tour a "vanity tour" offering only "tinkering" and calling instead for broader tax cuts. The subscription and discount reforms sit alongside other unfunded pledges, including a business rate cut for pubs, clubs and music venues costing around £100m a year, while chancellor John Healey faces a £4.7bn shortfall in defence spending and has promised his first Budget, on 28 October, will be built on "fiscal discipline".
The underlying measures announced by the prime minister will force firms to make subscriptions easier to cancel and disclose costs more clearly rather than quietly auto-renewing them, with the rules brought forward from next spring to January, alongside a consultation on banning deceptive discount practices via the Competition and Markets Authority. Citizens Advice, which found 26 per cent of UK adults had accidentally taken out a subscription in a year, welcomed the plans, which the government says could save households £14 a month; economists at NIESR have separately warned Burnham and Healey there is "no capacity to borrow any more" to fund such priorities.
- Opposition calls Burnham's cost-of-living tour a "vanity tour"
- Funding unclear: £100m pub rate cut, £4.7bn defence shortfall
- Subscription and discount reforms still central; savings put at £14/month
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Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has been promoting a package of measures aimed at easing living costs, including plans to make it harder for companies to trap customers in unwanted subscriptions and to cut business rates for pubs, clubs and music venues. The subscription rules themselves come from central government, tightening how firms handle auto-renewals and discounts, but Burnham's wider package has raised questions about who will pay for it.
The row centres on money: Burnham's proposals, including the £100m-a-year business rate cut, do not yet have a clear source of funding. This matters because the government's finances are already stretched, with chancellor John Healey dealing with a shortfall in the defence budget and preparing his first Budget for 28 October, which he says will prioritise financial restraint over new spending commitments.
Critics, including opposition politicians and independent economists, argue there is little room to borrow more and have questioned whether Burnham's tour to publicise the measures amounts to meaningful help or largely symbolic gestures. Consumer groups such as Citizens Advice have separately welcomed the underlying subscription reforms, which are designed to stop people being charged for services they no longer want or forgot they had signed up to.
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Originally published by The Independent as “Burnham vows to tackle ‘rip-off’ subscriptions in cost-of-living crackdown”.