Lord Selsdon
Main Page: Lord Selsdon (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)Unsolicited Telephone Communications Bill [HL]
Lord Selsdon Excerpts
Lord Selsdon (Con)
My Lords, over my years in this House, I have found that two subjects always come to the front and the back of my mind at the same time. Those are privacy and freedom. If we are not careful, we will find that legislation can handicap and control us, bureaucracy takes over, and we lose that most critical quality of individuality. For me, privacy in one’s own home is as important as anything. It is for this reason that, over a period of 10 years, I introduced a Bill on powers of entry, not necessarily to produce new legislation, but to bring forward regulations that would forbid someone to go into a person’s home without permission or without a court order.
I find, too, that if you want to do something here, you start with a Starred Question, and you have a little debate. Then you table a Question for Written Answer, but not like the leaders, who may ask hundreds of questions a year. You are seeking information. If you do not get it, you try a Private Member’s Bill, which effectively opens up the issue for discussion and debate. That is the purpose today. I am very grateful to the Government for giving me permission to speak and to introduce the Bill. Its objective is not necessarily to pass into law but to raise issues for open debate.
Unsolicited telephone communications are commonly known as a nuisance phone calls. I do not know who thought of the term “nuisance” first, but that includes unsolicited live direct marketing calls, automated recorded message calls and silent, abandoned calls. That is as if people were entering your home without permission unless they have said who they are. Many of these calls cause considerable distress. They come under the control, indirectly or directly, of Ofcom. Recent research by Ofcom of UK adults with landline phones found that 82% had experienced a nuisance call over the four-week period of that research. More than 54% reported experiencing a silent call and an estimated 17% an abandoned call. Other research drew attention to the stress and anxiety caused to many recipients by that invasion of privacy, as one might call it, including a report that more than 3 million people were left with a fear of answering the phone and worry about debt selling or payday loans.
That is easily soluble by regulation. We have to bring in this great thing, the European Economic Community. The principle at the moment is that if you use Ofcom, you have a chance to say that you do not want nuisance calls, but that does not actually help you very much. The purpose of the Bill is to say that if you want to receive calls, you register with Ofcom; if you do not want to receive calls, you do not do anything. EC Directive 2002/58 states that it is up to member states to decide whether they have an opt-in or an opt-out policy for marketing phone calls. Therefore, the Bill does not contradict the EC directive, which states:
“Member States shall take appropriate measures to ensure that, free of charge, unsolicited communications for purposes of direct marketing, in cases other than those referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2, are not allowed either without the consent of the subscribers concerned or in respect of subscribers who do not wish to receive these communications, the choice between these options to be determined by national legislation”.
I am saying that to stop this invasion of your house or your home, we change the rules, which we can do quite simply in this House—domestically—so that only those who want those calls opt in and everyone else is protected.
The Bill reverses the relevant regulations in the privacy and electronic communications directive. We can do that domestically. Your Lordships will probably be aware that one of the most informed institutions in the world on EEC matters is your Lordships’ House, because of its numerous EU committees. I am advised that it is a simple matter to change the implementation of the EC regulation here in the United Kingdom so that this proposal works.
At present, Ofcom keeps a register of people who have opted out. The principle of leaving Ofcom in control is therefore accepted. Your Lordships have considerable experience here, and from discussions, I have a feeling that officials may say that this is not possible, whereas the Public Bill Office, for which I have great respect, feels that it is. With his wise judgment, my noble friend the Minister will make a decision one way or the other in a few moments.
There is also the fear factor. I never realised how invading your home with telephone calls caused stress. I do not see why one cannot get a response. If we have had 82% receiving nuisance calls over a four-week period, one wonders how many there are.
Which bodies approach you depends on what people are trying to sell you. However, there is a reverse factor here: if you want to speak to any bank these days, normally you are referred directly or indirectly to a call centre, wherever it may be on the face of the earth. How do you know who is at that call centre? You will usually get a Christian name given to you. Now, is that Christian name the name of the young lady who is answering or is it the name of the telephone post? I have found, on many occasions when I have rung on various financial matters, that I get “Tracy” with a different name. Or you have your offshore organisations, where you may ring Calcutta but you have no idea whether or not you are ringing a respectable body. Telecommunications as such have created a great degree of uncertainty.
I hope that your Lordships will accept that I am not trying to do anything complex. I am advised by the Public Bill Office that this is easy and will be almost a stroke of the pen. I beg to move.
Lord Selsdon
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson. It is so nice to have more support on the opposition Benches than on one’s own. I say nothing against my noble friend, but he is too young to remember those signs on gates outside houses, which said, “No hawkers, no circulars”. He will, of course, know that the reason that I am in your Lordships’ House is to do with telecommunications, because my grandfather was the longest-serving Postmaster General in the past 100 years.
I will give my noble friend a little help and refer him to the wonderful report from the House of Lords Library. However, that report is effectively banned from outside circulation because of information that is deemed as not approved for use elsewhere. Will he give very serious consideration to the all-party group that he mentioned last week? Will he also consider: the DCMS written evidence; the report submitted to the House of Commons nuisance calls inquiry of 10 September 2013; the ICO and Ofcom joint action plan, “Tackling Nuisance Calls and Messages”, of 31 July 2013; the Ofcom landline nuisance calls panel research of 17 May 2013; the House of Commons Library Note, Nuisance Calls: Unsolicited Sales and Marketing, and Silent Calls, of 10 July 2013; and StepChange’s “Got Their Number” campaign of 29 October 2013. I want to make sure that this goes into Hansard so that other people can read it
I can therefore assure the noble Lord that I have at my disposal perhaps as much information as, or possibly even more, than his officials. Therefore, on that expression “foot-dragging”, I never know whether it means you drag the whole of your foot or just your toe when you do it. I would be grateful if he would give consent to perhaps having a small group meeting as quickly as possible so that we can work out the solutions. One of those solutions would be the amendment of that EC directive or part thereof. Maybe his officials might meet with the Public Bill Office upstairs to see how this could be done.
In the mean time, we find that most of the people who suffer the greatest are not electronically enabled. They do not have PCs; they are not “press button to answer” people. They cannot even work an answerphone. However, they feel very insecure when, out of the blue, comes a voice they try to answer but which gives no response. They do not know what these calls are. This is about the uncertainty and anxiety that is created. I thought, for a bit of fun, that I would make a threatening message; I will not repeat it to your Lordships, but I recorded myself so that I could press a button when anyone did that to me and leave them in fear of their life. However, that would probably have got me into serious trouble.
I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister, who is a very good chap, and will do what he said. I took the liberty—I probably should not mention this in your Lordships’ House—of speaking to his officials. We know that officials are pretty good but, although they often try to direct their Minister, we always work better when Ministers direct their officials. I beg to move.