Oral Answers to Questions

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and he is right: we are at the forefront of online safety. It is not just me saying that; the Family Online Safety Institute says it, too. It is really important that we acknowledge that not only ISPs and people who have websites should take these matters seriously. As he said, parents and schools should take their role seriously, too.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

4. What steps she is taking to reduce the number of nuisance calls.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

We have introduced and increased penalties for companies that breach the regulations, we have encouraged greater co-operation between regulators and we have improved guidance for consumers. In our strategy paper, published at the end of July, we made proposals to enable the regulators to share their information better.

[Bob Blackman]

The most insidious calls start with the words, “Don’t worry, this is not a sales and marketing call.” If a person answers the survey, they are told that someone will call them about their needs and a veritable barrage of unwanted sales calls follows. What action will the regulator take to combat this insidious action, and if the regulators will not act, what will my hon. Friend do?

[Mr Vaizey]

I would have thought that the most insidious call started with the words, “I am calling from the Labour party”, but in any event we are going to take action. That includes lowering the threshold at which enforcement action can be taken. We have introduced higher fines and technology will play an important part in enabling better calling line identification.