Conservative MP who dedicated her energies to the rights of the consumer

Sally Oppenheim-Barnes, who has died aged 96, was the former Conservative minister of state for consumer affairs and a politician with an intuitive understanding of what was of concern to the public in general and her constituents in particular. She had recognised the growing importance of the rights of the customer in the booming Britain of the 1960s and on arrival in the House of Commons in 1970 immediately set about making the subject her own.

She was a bright, brash, assertive woman who made full use of three years’ Rada training for the stage and who was famed for an eye-catching wardrobe, wrist-rattling jewellery and a large helmet of blond hair that would not have been out of place on the set of Dallas. She knew what she wanted and set out to get it, and having decided on a political career (early marriage and motherhood having put paid to acting), she took advice on how to proceed.