Nuisance Phone Calls

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) on securing this important debate. The fact that hon. Members on both sides of the House have spoken demonstrates that he was right to press for the debate. He set out clearly the technical issues that we are facing.

I am also grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton), who first drew the problem to my attention. She is demonstrating her concern by sitting here and listening to the debate, which will not end in a whipped vote. What would demonstrate greater commitment than that?

Nuisance calls are a rapidly growing problem, and their number has trebled since the general election. I hope the Minister is paying attention, because this is one issue on which he cannot say, “What did you do for 13 years?” The fact is that this is a new problem for which he needs to find a new solution.

Some 47% of adults surveyed say they have received nuisance calls. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) is absolutely right that it is shocking that 76% of people who have signed up to TPS are still receiving nuisance calls. That shows that, even when people behave perfectly sensibly and responsibly, they are still pestered, even if they have not displayed the degree of entrepreneurialism recommended by the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price).

The seriousness of the problem was demonstrated in the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) and for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah). The calls are not only a nuisance; they can become threatening to some people, and they can also lead to serious financial frauds and scams. That is why it is important that the Government take serious action.

The briefing from Ofcom on its work is interesting, but Ofcom, too, is asking for changes to the regulatory framework. Ofcom would like to be allowed to share information with the Information Commissioner’s Office, which highlights the problem—we need a single regulator, a single port of call. Sharing information will not be enough; we need one place where people can go with the confidence that they will receive a proper answer. What discussions has the Minister had with his colleagues in the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on introducing one seamless operation to address this scourge of modern life?

Ofcom also mentioned the difficulty of addressing the problem of nuisance calls given its limited resources. The Minister is responsible for cutting Ofcom’s budget by 28%. When he did so, I am sure he thought it would be a cut without consequences for the general public because Ofcom is part of the Government machinery that is invisible to ordinary members of the public. In practice, such cuts have real implications, and he must think about whether Ofcom has the resources it needs to address nuisance calls.

I reiterate what other hon. Members have said: Ofcom should be the lead institution, because people have heard of Ofcom. But it is not simply a question of beefing up Ofcom; we also need a new framework based on the important principle that people are entitled to their privacy and should be in control of their own personal information.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central said, the issue is not only with nuisance calls but with people’s use of the internet and new technology in general. One of the main inhibitors when people go online is their anxiety about loss of privacy, and nuisance calls are another good example of that. The Government, who are pursuing a policy of digital by default, must energetically address that anxiety.

Members on both sides of the House agree that unwanted calls are a nuisance and that we need a fresh approach. Will the Minister say something about the forthcoming communications White Paper, which has been rather delayed, and commit to including nuisance calls in that and in new legislation? We hope to see a framework and outline for those things in the Queen’s Speech, so that we can get moving on the problems.

I hope the Minister will be able to address the following issues in the White Paper. There should be a single complaints portal and a single regulator. There should also be changes to the rules on consent. At the moment, withdrawing consent is difficult once it has been given. If a person gives consent to a firm, the firm can carry on using that consent, even if the person subsequently signs up to the TPS. The firm can also sell on those data. We must enable people to retract consent simply and straightforwardly. I would also like the Minister to explore the possibility of ensuring that third-party marketing consent expires after three months.

It would help if the Minister said a little more about the monetary penalties available. Does he believe that the ICO needs to have stronger powers to issue fines and monetary penalties? These firms have an interest in making a high number of calls. They have a financial interest in exceeding the 3% of abandoned and nuisance calls permitted under the existing regulations. As long as they have a financial interest in doing so and it is difficult to tackle the technology, they will carry on doing that, so the only way to deal with it is for a strong, powerful financial disincentive through the fines mechanism.

Finally, we need to address the technology question. I was pleased to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, who probably knows more about the technology than anyone else in the Chamber, say that it can be done. With a number of the culture, media and sports policy issues that we have debated, the initial stance of the industry has been, “Oh, it is not technically possible to do that,” although it has then turned out to be possible.

Hon. Members have suggested that even if the telephone number of the caller cannot be released to the recipient, the recipient should be able to complain to Ofcom and refer to the call, so that Ofcom can trace it. That is sensible. Another suggestion, equally important, is that mobile phone companies should be able to provide consumers with spam-filtering technology, to help them to tackle the problem of spam text messages, which all of us have received about PPI.

This is an important issue—we agree on that—and it is a new issue, so I am not blaming the Minister for not having dealt with it earlier, because he could not be expected to have that much foresight of the situation. The problem having now arisen, however, we clearly do not have the necessary institutional and legal machinery in place, so he needs to act. I hope that he will make a commitment to act in the forthcoming communications White Paper.