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Helen Knapman

Helen Knapman

News & Investigations Editor

Helen has over a decade's experience championing consumer causes and has worked as a personal finance journalist and editor on national titles since January 2011.

She has held her current role, MSE's News and Investigations Editor, since April 2023. Previously, Helen held senior positions at financial magazine Moneywise and at The Sun.

Helen covers all issues that impact consumers, and has played a pivotal role in MSE's Lifetime ISA and unusually high call volumes campaigns. Standing up for consumers, fighting for their rights, investigating injustices, and holding big firms and the powers that be to account is what drives Helen. She regularly appears as an expert for MSE on TV, radio and in print.

Helen was named as the Wincott Foundation's Personal Finance Journalist of the Year in 2019, having won the Online Financial Journalist of the Year at the 2013 Santander Media Awards.

In her spare time, Helen tries to practise what she preaches by bagging a bargain on everything from gym classes to globetrotting and dining out.

Latest from Helen Knapman

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Energy bills will be capped at £2,500 a year for a typical household from 1 October 2022 for the next two winters, Prime Minister Liz Truss has announced. A £400 energy rebate will also continue to be paid as planned from October. Here's MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis' round-up.
11 September 2022
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Lloyds Banking Group has announced more bank branch closures with a further 66 outlets set to close across England, Northern Ireland, and Wales between October this year and February 2023. The closures consist of 48 Lloyds Bank branches and 18 Halifax outlets. 
24 July 2022
Watch Martin Lewis's Q&A with Rishi Sunak
Watch MoneySavingExpert.com founder Martin Lewis interview the Chancellor of the Exchequer below. In the video, Martin puts his own, MSE users' and Martin's social media followers' questions to Rishi Sunak following today's announcement of a new cost of living support package.
27 June 2022
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Sweeping proposals designed to get more people on to the property ladder have been announced by the Prime Minister today (Thursday 9 June). It comes as homes now cost nine times people's incomes, according to the Government. 
8 June 2022
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HSBC has today (1 June) made its temporary Covid-19 opening hours permanent across its UK branch network. The move means a cut to hours at 122 branches based on their pre-Covid levels, with 26 of these outlets seeing opening hours fall by more than 30%. However, 148 branches will get a 30-minute boost to opening times. 
31 May 2022
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Some Easyjet and Ryanair passengers have wrongly been told at the departure gate that they can't board flights because their passports are invalid. If you've been incorrectly turned away but your passport is fit for travel, here's how to get a full refund and £100s in compensation on top. Plus we confirm the passport rules for European travel.
12 May 2022
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Mortgage broker Tembo has taken down misleading online adverts encouraging people to remortgage to repay their student loans after pressure from MoneySavingExpert.com (MSE). Two pages on the firm's website have also been removed after we told Tembo we'd report it to the financial regulator as the advice could have left many worse off. 
11 May 2022
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British Airways passengers who feel they were wrongly handed vouchers for cancelled flights during the pandemic may now be able to get cash refunds following a U-turn by the airline. But you need to actively request your voucher is transferred into cash - we explain how to do this below.  
29 March 2022
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Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced sweeping changes to national insurance contributions (NICs) that will see a typical employee saving over £330 a year from 6 July 2022. The change comes as part of today's Spring Statement, with other key announcements, which we will round up below, including the basic rate of tax being cut by 1 percentage point from April 2024 and fuel duty rates being cut by 5p/litre.
23 March 2022
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University leavers from England and Wales who started university in or after 2012 will pay around £110 a year more than they would've done from April as the Government has announced a plan to freeze the student loan repayment threshold - the earnings level at which loans begin to be repaid. 
28 January 2022
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Train passengers in England, Scotland and Wales will be hit with the largest fare rise in nearly a decade, with ticket prices increasing by up to 3.8%. It is the biggest jump since 2013. 
6 January 2022
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EE is to start charging new and upgrading customers a flat £2/day roaming fee to use their monthly allowance in Europe from March 2022. The mobile company had said the fee would begin in January but this has been pushed back by two months, meaning rival Vodafone will become the first to enact a roaming fee from the start of next year. 
30 December 2021
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Holidaymakers from the UK will be banned from entering France from 00.01am on Saturday 18 December, whether they are vaccinated or not. Only those with a "compelling" reason will now be able to enter the country but this doesn't include travel for tourist or business reasons.
16 December 2021
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A MoneySaver has been awarded about £300 after successfully arguing in the small claims court he should have been given a cash refund instead of vouchers for British Airways flights cancelled due to Covid-19. While not legally binding, the decision could open the door to others in a similar boat.
26 November 2021
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Millions of workers on Universal Credit will get a cash boost by 1 December, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced in his Autumn Budget. The taper rate, which is the amount Universal Credit payments are reduced by when you're in work, will fall from 63% to 55%. In addition, the amount households with children or a limited capacity for work can earn before they're hit by the taper rate will rise by £500/yr.
26 October 2021
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Full-time students studying for an undergraduate degree at a university in England will be charged no more than £9,250/yr in tuition fees in the 2022/23 academic year, the UK Government has confirmed. It means it's the fifth year in a row that fees have been frozen. 
24 October 2021