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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to prevent nuisance telephone callers making unwanted calls after a telephone number is registered with the Telephone Preference Service.

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) impose strict obligations on organisations that make direct marketing calls to individuals in the UK. Organisations must not call a number that has been registered on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) list. For calls relating to pensions and personal injury claims, calls must not be made at all unless the consumer has provided his or her consent.

The Information Commissioner is responsible for enforcing PECR and publishes details of the actions it has taken for breaches of the legislation on its website:

https://ico.org.uk/action-weve-taken/nuisance-calls-and-messages/

We are committed to reducing the level of nuisance calls and continue to work with industry and regulators to identify further steps to tackle the problem. For example, we have been working with National Trading Standards to supply call blocking devices to some of the most vulnerable in society.