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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps the Government has taken to reduce the number and frequency of nuisance phonecalls.

The government acknowledge that unwanted marketing calls are a source of annoyance and inconvenience for consumers. For the most vulnerable, however, nuisance calls can cause extreme anxiety and distress. We have been clear that there is no place for such calls in society.

To help reduce this problem, we legislated in the Financial Guidance and Claims Act 2018 to further restrict marketing calls from claims management services and pensions providers. We have also recently concluded a consultation on taking tougher action against directors whose companies are responsible for breaches of legislation in relation to nuisance calls and electronic messages. We are currently analysing the consultation responses and will publish a government response in due course.