My Lords, most of the other amendments in this group are in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Stevenson, and I
would like to speak to them. Obviously I endorse the first amendment, but I would perhaps widen it to all nuisance calls. Basically, I feel that enough is enough. I am sorry if we made excuses when we were in government; we have to put a stop to it now.
I do not know how many instances we need before we do something. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro has indicated the size and effect of the calls about payday loans—but, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, there are also claims management companies talking about non-existent car crashes, or missold PPI or some other dubious sale on the phone at all hours, to such an extent that some people do not even answer their phone any more; we know of elderly people who do not. I have seen someone in this House phone for three rings, put the phone down, phone again for three rings and put it down again. I wondered what they were doing, and it was because their parent would not answer the phone until that code had happened. I think that that reflects a real breach of consumer law.
We know that the Information Commissioner’s Office has received 160,000 complaints about unsolicited calls and texts. MPs tell us that it fills their postbag. Ofcom says that it is its number one complaint, averaging over 3,000 a month. Given that most of us would never think to complain to Ofcom, that must be the tiniest tip of the iceberg. Indeed, it is very hard to know where to take a complaint. I looked at my phone bill and on the back, 60 lines down in immensely small print—my noble friend reckons that it is 8-point—there is a heading, “Commitment to our customers”. You then have to work out that that is what complaints come under. It says that you should complain to the provider, BT, and that if you are still unhappy you can go to the ombudsman service. Another 10 lines down it gives the address of Ofcom, though not its phone number, but without saying that you could take the complaint there. So if Ofcom is getting 3,000 complaints a month, that must be a tiny proportion of those who would like to complain.
What is more, Ofcom research shows that it is vulnerable people who are especially at risk, as we have heard, with one-quarter of customers getting at least 10 calls a week. My fear is that there are more than that—but, even worse, some people do not realise that these are scam calls; if anyone says that they have not had a call, I really worry about their likelihood of falling for one. A BT survey found that nuisance calls ranked above queue jumpers, noisy neighbours and rude commuters as the most irritating aspect of their daily life. About half the respondents found these calls so intrusive that they raised their stress levels. About seven in 10 landline calls receive live marketing calls, and that adds up to 7.8 billion a year.
Furthermore, three-quarters of the landlines are registered with the telephone preference service, which shows that that system is not working. Indeed, those on the telephone preference service list still get about 10 nuisance calls a month—my own experience is that it is probably higher than that—and we know that over half the people on the list are not satisfied with what it does. However, for some reason or other, telephone companies remain reluctant to act, despite the fact that we continue to have to pay
them to have our phone line, even when we are unwilling to answer a call from it in case it is not from a friend or family.
So we have had reports, recommendations and complaints but no action. The Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee reported on nuisance calls and recommended legislation to proscribe the unfair process of personal contact data, including telephone numbers, and asked the Information Commissioner to act against companies that call people who have signed up to telephone preference. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Nuisance Calls, whose work on this I commend, called for a lower threshold for Information Commissioner action, which is particularly relevant after the commissioner lost a case because the appeal tribunal did not consider that substantial distress had been caused.
The Government have said that they will take action, but they seem to be taking their time. In March, the DCMS nuisance calls action plan set out plans to consult on lowering the threshold before the Information Commissioner can act. It took seven months—that is, until last week—for the consultation to be launched, and even then it was only about lowering the threshold from “substantially distressing” to “annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety”. We should remove not only the threshold but the need to show repeated annoyance to allow the Information Commissioner at least to proceed to take a judgment on the issue.
The Government should also ask the telephone providers to play their part. It is a bit like what we have just heard about the internet: the Government seem reluctant to say to the people who could do something, “Do it”. What we are asking for would put an onus on the telephone companies to do something. I was recently contacted by Ian Moss, who told me that for a year after she had a car accident, his wife was getting five to 10 telephone calls a day about it. Nevertheless, even if the threshold is lowered, he would still have to prove that the caller deliberately or negligently breached the Data Protection Act for the ICO to act.
We want to get rid of the threshold and let the Information Commissioner decide on a case-by-case basis. That is what Amendment 105H would do. However, as I said, we should not just leave it to the Information Commissioner, who was set up to do quite a different job. Increasingly, calls come from machines that dial every available number, so it is not even a matter of selling on information collected for some other purpose. We need to look at who is doing the calling, rather than ask some other intermediary to act. We should make it illegal for them to try to sell to people who have not given them permission to phone.
As a first stage, we should ensure that people know who is calling them. Partly, that helps them to know whether to lift the phone at all, but it is also important for stamping out the practice, as it would reveal who is calling, so complaints could be made. Amendment 105G would mandate caller line identification—in other words, knowing who is calling—for non-domestic callers doing any sort of marketing. We also ask that telephone operators make the facility to be able to read the number available free to subscribers. That does not seem much to ask.
When I was young, or even when I was middle-aged, we had to buy a telephone answering machine to add to our phone; now it comes automatically in the phone. So should this; it is what telephone providers should do. It is, after all, the telephone line which is being misused, so providers must stop avoiding their responsibility, take action against those who misuse the lines and help innocent customers avoid those calls.
At the moment, according to trueCall Research, 44% of nuisance calls arrive without caller line identification, so it is impossible even to make complaints about them. Although a quarter of them may be from abroad, even showing that they are from abroad—unless you have a student child roaming the world and wanting money from time to time—you will know that if it is an international number it is probably not for you. Others simply show up as number withheld—and it is that, with a few exceptions, we would outlaw.
The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee supported proscribing withheld caller identifications, as did the all-party group. Alun Cairns put it so well in moving his 10-minute rule Bill last year in the other place. He said that nuisance calls,
“could be compared to someone knocking at the door wearing a mask or a balaclava. Would we answer the door to such an unknown caller? Of course we would not. Why, then, do we allow the same thing to happen over the telephone?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 28/2/13; cols. 158WH.]
Finally, as we have seen from the numbers I have given, the telephone preference service, which acts on an opt-out basis, clearly is not working. Amendment 105F would make it an opt-in system, so that consumers who want to receive calls should opt in to receive them. Jo Connell, chair of the Communications Consumer Panel, strongly supports the amendment calling for this opt-in for consent to direct marketing, as well as mandating caller line identification and the provision of that facility for free, as it is a service provided by the telephone companies but paid for by consumers that is being abused. Indeed, the panel was surprised and concerned that that was not already the case. As she has said, caller line identification can help report nuisance calls to regulators, as well as enable people to block and filter certain calls.
Ofcom welcomes Amendment 105H, as it would make it easier for the Information Commissioner to take enforcement action, and Amendment 105G, which would make caller line identification mandatory for non-domestic callers. I hope that the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate will be accepted, but I hope in due course ours also might be.
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