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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with Ofcom on switching of mobile phone contracts by consumers from a losing provider-led process to a gaining provider-led process.

My Right Hon. Friend the Secretary of State meets regularly with Ofcom to discuss a variety of issues.

We set out our thinking on switching in the Connectivity, Content and Consumers [CCC} Strategy Paper, published in July 2013. In December 2013 Ofcom announced that gaining-provider led (GPL) switching would be mandated for broadband and fixed telephony over the Openreach network. Full implementation of this will be completed by June 2015.

In July-September 2014, Ofcom collected inputs on consumers’ experience of switching providers of pay-TV, mobile services and bundled services; and considered possible impacts on competition. The regulator will publish a document in the first half of 2015 setting out its findings and how it intends to take things forward, including for the switching of mobile service providers. I hope that, in line with our statement in the CCC paper, this will result in GPL switching being mandated across the board.