Non-geographic Telephone Numbers

Debate between Gregory Campbell and Richard Burden

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Westminster Hall

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Brady. I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this important issue. The matter is of concern to many people—all our constituents, I think. It is a complex and controversial issue, but the term “non-geographic phone numbers” generally covers numbers that start with 08, 0845, 087, 09 and 118, and which are used for everything from contacting Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to voting on TV shows.

All the evidence shows that people find the numbers extremely confusing and expensive. The so-called freephone 0800 numbers are guaranteed to be free only when phoned from a land-line—they are not always free from mobile phones—and it is people on low and fixed incomes who are undoubtedly hardest hit. Poorer people often do not have the security of a land-line, and they are unable to get contracts.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. He rightly says that 0800 numbers are free only from a land-line. Does he agree that the warning signal, or the acknowledgment that it could be very costly to use such numbers from a mobile, is often in such a tiny—almost insignificant—font size, either on the screen or in newspaper print, as to be illegible, particularly for elderly people?

[Richard Burden]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It is important that the information is clearer, but perhaps what is more important—and this is the case I will advance today—is ensuring that the calls are free rather than just pretending to be free for certain people.

As I was saying, people on low and fixed incomes do not have access to land-lines, and they probably do not have access to contract mobile phones either or, sometimes, to the internet. They rely, therefore, on prepay mobile phones and phone boxes, and as the former have higher call costs than contract phones poorer people end up paying more to use the telephone than those on higher incomes. A study by Save the Children, in fact, found that they could be paying about 22% more.

What is particularly unfair, and this is one of the major subjects of today’s debate, is that it is not just businesses and game shows that charge people a fortune; the Government’s own use of the numbers is a matter for concern. I have been contacted by constituents who are justifiably irate that ringing essential public services, such as HMRC, results in them having sky-high bills. The answers I have received to parliamentary questions to Departments have revealed not only the shocking scale, but the scope of Government use of high-cost phone numbers. Six out of 10 Government phone lines are high cost. The Home Office, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs all use a high proportion of high-cost phone lines. The Department for Work and Pensions alone has 200-plus 0845 numbers. Vulnerable people are being charged rip-off rates for contacting essential services, including pension, work and welfare services—when talking to Jobcentre Plus, the Pensions Advisory Service, about disability living allowance and attendance allowance, and so on. The waiting times for the services can be long, and that drives up bills even further.

The 0845 and 087 revenue-sharing numbers are the major culprits. Calling the numbers can cost anything up to 41p a minute, and a service charge is included, which is paid to the Government. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey) is here today because he has done some very important work on what he has rightly termed a telephone tax, and the National Audit Office is also looking into the scandal. It is simply beyond belief that people calling taxpayer-funded phone lines are taxed again. Some Departments have been making money, and phone companies are clearly making a fortune. It is illogical and unfair, and it cannot continue. The use of revenue-sharing numbers by the Government and all associated public agencies must stop, and it must stop now.