Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, pursuant to the Answer of 11 September 2017 to Question 8813, on telecommunications: misrepresentation, whether informed consent applies for the duration of the contract; and how informed consent applies to people who may become classified as vulnerable during the contract period.

Ofcom currently has rules in place which ensure that where communication providers make modifications to contractual terms which are likely to be of material detriment to a subscriber, they notify the subscriber of the modification and their ability to terminate the contract without penalty if the proposed modification is not acceptable.

In terms of identifying whether a customer is vulnerable, the communications provider would need to be made aware of the change in the consumer's circumstances either by the customer or a third party if they were authorised to act on their behalf.

Ofcom has now proposed, as part of its review of General Conditions of Entitlement, that all communications providers must comply with the introduction of a new condition on vulnerability which would require communication providers to take reasonable steps to identify vulnerable customers.