Nuisance Phone Calls

Iain McKenzie Excerpts

Thursday 28th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee on bringing this debate before us. Many of us have been contacted by constituents about this subject in the past weeks, if not months.

Anger over nuisance calls is growing, and rightly so. The latest Ofcom complaints data show that complaints to the Telephone Preference Service increased 150% from July 2011 to July 2012. Many of my constituents have regularly received nuisance calls that are supposedly from within the UK. They are told there is something wrong with their computer and that the caller is qualified by Microsoft to fix it for a fee. They may also be asked for personal details, but the details some people reveal are passed on, and, lo and behold, those people then receive another call, about anything from what they do in their leisure time to their choice in shoes.

A constituent told me of a call they have received, which starts with the words, “This is an urgent message about your personal pension.” It goes on to say, “Press 5 for immediate action,” at which point, the person receiving the call can be signed up to something. The message then says, “Or press 9 to be removed from our database”, although the company will, of course, do no such thing, and the person will receive the calls over and over again. Dialling 1471 in the hope of finding out who is calling just results in hearing, “We do not have the caller’s number.”

Thousands of people up and down the country have to deal with this every day, and many of them are elderly. For many vulnerable and elderly people, nuisance calls are a menace, and one that puts them at risk of fraud—just as if a crook or pushy salesman had turned up on their doorstep offering to sell them this, that and the other. People are experiencing this every day over the phone.

A growing number of nuisance calls come from overseas, and there seems to be no way of protecting the British public from them at the moment. Many people have been victims of terrible scams and have lost money, which they can ill afford to lose at this time.

In 2010, Parliament approved an increase in the financial penalty available to Ofcom to enforce its rules on nuisance calls, from £50,000 to £2 million. Yet, there is still no real action. The Information Commissioner’s Office has fined just one company in the past 18 months. Studies show that 76% of people who have suffered from nuisance calls were still receiving unsolicited calls despite being registered with the Telephone Preference Service.

What is being done, therefore, to improve the situation? The TPS makes it clear on its website that there has been a rise in the number of unwanted calls made to people registered with it. However, it says that most of them originate from companies that deliberately ignore the law or disguise their identity.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, many of these nuisance calls are generated overseas, which means that the firms taking advantage of the information the calls produce are deliberately getting round the regulatory system here. Would the hon. Gentleman support what I would like to see, which is the naming and shaming of high street firms that pay overseas companies to do exactly that?

[Mr McKenzie]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, and I share her concern, but I would like to go a bit further than just naming and shaming.

The TPS has no enforcement powers, but it does send its complaints to Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office each month. However, despite the TPS sending more than 1,000 complaints each month, the ICO has yet to issue a fine against any company.

What does the law say, and who enforces it? Ofcom has powers under the Communications Act 2003 to deal with the persistent misuse of a communications network or service, which includes the generation of unsolicited and silent calls. The ICO enforces any breaches of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, which cover rules about unsolicited electronic marketing messages sent by telephone, fax, e-mail or text. Regulation 19 requires organisations making automated marketing telephone calls to have the prior consent of the person being called. That means that live marketing calls cannot be made to anyone who has indicated an objection to receiving them—for example, by registering with the TPS.

What, however, is happening in reality? Constituents have told me time and again that, despite registering with the TPS, they are still plagued by cold calls. The safeguards are therefore doing little to protect them. Ofcom has fined nine companies for making silent calls, but if the companies persist it must be because, in spite of the fines, it is worth their while. Over the 10 years for which Ofcom and the ICO have had the relevant powers they have been used only rarely against the many companies known to be breaching the requirements.

Apart from an apparent general reluctance to act, the regulators tie their own hands by the policies that they set. To give just a few examples of the complexity of those policies, Ofcom uses the persistent misuse powers only against those who it finds have failed to follow its policy that no more than 3% of calls may be abandoned. All other reported misuse, including making millions of silent calls within the 3% limit, is tolerated. The ICO requires that the direct marketing purpose of the call be explicitly declared. However, a caller collecting information about an individual for direct marketing purposes may say that they are providing public information or conducting a survey.

The maze of regulations does not help. We need one clear point of contact with the power to act and enforce the law. While there are different regulators and different Departments in charge, there will always be loopholes for the companies to abuse and exploit. I fear that legislation may be the only step that we can take to curtail nuisance calls in the long term. I call on the Minister and the Government to bring about a single, simple point of contact for any individual wishing to protect their privacy from unwanted calls, texts, faxes or e-mails.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—