Digital Economy Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Calum Kerr and Mark Menzies

Committee Debate: 3rd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 13th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

Q All our constituents are victims of nuisance calls. Do you think the law as it currently stands is sufficient to protect them? What measures in the Bill do you think will offer enhanced protection, and when we are dealing with companies that are out to drive a coach and horses through the law, what measures do you think we can put in place to provide protection for customers? If I could lead you down a path, at the moment, if you want to lodge a complaint against a company you have to have the phone number and the website address. When I have asked nuisance call companies, “Can I have your phone number; can I have your website address?” guess what? They have neither of those things.

Lindsey Fussell: We absolutely recognise that nuisance calls remain a huge concern to consumers. We estimate that consumers in the UK will receive about 4 billion nuisance calls this year. If I sit, as I have, and listen to calls coming into our contact centre, I know how distressing and frightening some of them can be to consumers.

As I mentioned earlier, the provisions in the Bill relate to the powers of the Information Commissioner, relating particularly to direct marketing calls. That forms a substantial proportion of the concerns that I know consumers have, and it is great to see the Information Commissioner being given more power to enforce against companies that break the rules, including companies that either do not have consent, or have very aged consent, if I can put it that way, for those calls to be made.

Ofcom’s specific interest is in silent and abandoned calls, which can be especially frustrating and frightening for more vulnerable consumers, particularly. We believe that the best way—because of the nature of the companies, as you have been saying, that are now making the majority of the calls—is to encourage more network blocking of those calls before they reach the consumer. That is something that we are making good progress on with a number of companies. You may have seen recent announcements from Vodafone in this space.

We also encourage companies to roll out software—and BT, again, is doing so shortly—free of charge to consumers to give consumers more power to block calls themselves. It is a really difficult problem but we are absolutely not complacent about trying to tackle it.

[Calum Kerr]

Q Perhaps I can bring you on to the universal service obligation. While we are frustrated by the lack of ambition in terms of the speed offers, if designed correctly it need not hold back regions and countries that want to go further. As you design the scheme, could you perhaps reassure me that it will not hinder but help a Government, such as the Scottish Government, who want to aim for 30 megabits and not 10 megabits?

Lindsey Fussell: Absolutely. As you know, our research shows that the current level of 10 megabits per second is suitable for consumers who need to access at least a reasonable level of communication service. Ofcom is supportive of the fact that the level needs to be reviewed over time, and we would expect it to rise. On our specification, as you know we will be providing advice to the UK Government by the end of this year. We will absolutely look at both the nature of that specification and what 10 megabits could mean in different contexts, and also at how we would future-proof that specification so it is able to deliver faster speeds under a USO if required to in future.