UNWANTED telephone calls, either to our mobiles or landlines, are a blight on our daily lives.
To some these calls are a minor convenience but to an increasing number of people they are the cause of real frustration and, for the elderly in particular, fear.
It’s an issue that is regularly raised with me by constituents and I have been working hard in Parliament to tighten the law around direct marketing calls of this nature.
Much of that work has been with my cross-party colleagues on the Digital Economy Bill Committee which I wrote about here a fortnight ago. But I have also been talking directly to ministers about how we can make it more difficult for the cold callers to plague the lives of the most vulnerable.
So I was delighted by last week’s announcement by Digital Policy Minister Matthew Hancock that the Government is to close a loophole that has allowed the owners of rogue marketing companies to escape justice by winding up the firms that have been fined. In the future the individuals behind the firms will also be personally liable for penalties of up to £500,000 so they can no longer cynically escape the consequences of their wrongdoing.
These new regulations will come into force by next spring. In addition, the Bill I am currently working on also includes a new statutory code of practice for direct marketing, giving greater powers to the Information Commissioner to better enforce sanctions against nuisance callers and spammers, and also to ensure that consent is obtained from consumers.
In the meantime, I would urge constituents to ensure they are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) – www.tpsonline.org.uk – if they do not wish to receive telemarketing calls. Unfortunately, this will not guarantee that you will not receive unwanted calls but it does allow you to register unsolicited sales or marketing calls and TPS will pass those details on to the Information Commissioner’s Office which has the power – shortly to be enhanced – to take action. The service is free.
Another useful tip when faced with having to provide a phone number on a form to register for a product or service, typically when making a charitable donation or booking a train or theatre ticket online, is to use trueCall38. Simply enter 0333 88 88 88 88 as your phone number. If the company calls the number, the caller hears a recorded message that you prefer not to be contacted by phone and to send you an email instead. Again, this service is free.
Along with my wife and two young daughters, I will be attending Saturday’s Firework and Bonfire Spectacular on the Applegarth in Northallerton.
This will be the third time we’ve enjoyed the display organised by the town council with generous support from the parish councils at Romanby and Brompton and Simon Bailes Peugeot. The event is superbly staged by North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and although as a Parliamentarian I think about Guy Fawkes Night a little differently these days, I am thoroughly looking forward to it and seeing many of you there.