@Jon and @pajamaman
You are both misunderstanding how VAT works. You are conflating it with a sales tax.
Prices in the UK and Europe have to include VAT on the price sticker and companies are recommended to NOT show an ex VAT price.
To a retail customer the price on the sticker is the price you pay regardless of what the VAT is. On some items it's zero rated, some are 5% and the vast majority are 20% however to the consumer THIS DOES NOT MATTER.
VAT is paid all along the chain from manufacturer to consumer and by all of the middlemen along the way. Although the consumer is the one that ends up paying it in the end as far as they are concerned it's invisible.
Companies are under no obligation to reduce their prices if VAT changes (although a lot of them do), yes it's a crappy situation but that doesn't change the fact. The price on the sticker is the price you pay, end of. The company that sold it to you then has to pay any taxes required out of that price paid, it's all invisible to the consumer.
Again VAT is NOT a sales tax, it's a tax on value added at every point along the chain.
An example, milk is zero rated for VAT in the UK so buying a pint of milk attracts no VAT. Cheese however which is made from that milk has had value added to it by the process to change the milk in to cheese so it attracts a 20% VAT charge. If VAT was a sales tax then that tax would also be on the milk at point of sale, as it's a Value Added Tax it's not.
Again VAT is NOT a sales tax and you are confusing the two.
Is it confusing YES, is it wrong that companies don't pass on the change, morally probably, lawfully no.
It might seem like the companies have raised their prices due to the removal of VAT but they haven't as VAT is not a sales tax. Yes it's confusing but that doesn't make you any less wrong.
And as to the point of prices being automatically raised if VAT increases, they don't again the price on the sticker is the price paid, regardless of the VAT amount. Now that's not to say companies don't raise their prices if VAT increases because they do but it's not automatic like it would be if it was a sales tax. They would have to relabel all of the prices to increase them.
There's a fairly decent simple explanation here
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53334098