Moved by
Lord Leong
208A: After Clause 112, insert the following new Clause—
“Prohibition on unsolicited calls regarding personal injury claims
(1) The PEC Regulations are amended as follows.
(2) In regulation 21 (calls for direct marketing purposes), in paragraph (6), leave out “or 21B” and insert “21B or 22A”.
(3) In regulation 22 (use of electronic mail for direct marketing purposes), after paragraph (4) insert—
“(5) Paragraph (1) does not apply to a case falling within regulation 22A.”
(4) After regulation 22 insert—
“22A Unsolicited calls and use of electronic mail by claims management companies for personal injury claims
(1) A person must not—
(a) use, nor instigate the use of, a public electronic communications service for the purpose of making unsolicited telephone calls for direct marketing, and
(b) transmit, nor instigate the transmission of, unsolicited communications for the purpose of direct marketing by means of electronic mail or otherwise,
if the conditions in subsection (2) are met.
(2) The conditions are that—
(a) the person making or instigating the call or transmitting or instigating the use of electronic mail—
(i) is acting on behalf of a claims management service, or
(ii) does so with a view to providing information to a claims management service, and
(c) the purpose of the call or the electronic mail is to engage a consumer in commencing a claim for a personal injury.
(3) In this regulation—
“claims management service” has the meaning given by section 419A of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000;
“unsolicited” means an approach which has not been specifically requested, even if a person has consented to receive marketing information;
“claim for a personal injury” means proceedings in which there is a claim for damages in respect of personal injuries to the claimant or any other person or in respect of a person’s death, and
“personal injuries” includes any disease and any impairment of a person’s physical or mental condition.””
Member's explanatory statement
This new Clause seeks to implement an outright ban on cold calling and spam texts from claims management companies for personal injury claims. Claims management companies would only be allowed to contact people about personal injury claims if they have specifically requested to be contacted about a potential claim.