Baroness Seccombe
Main Page: Baroness Seccombe (Conservative - Life peer)
Baroness Seccombe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent announcement that cold-callers will have to display their phone numbers, what more they plan to do to prevent vulnerable people from being targeted by unscrupulous callers.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Neville-Rolfe) (Con)
My Lords, during the passage of the Consumer Rights Act, I made a commitment to this House that the Government would make it a requirement for direct marketing callers to display caller line identification, so I am delighted that this requirement will come into force on 16 May. It is part of a package of measures that we will be introducing to protect the most vulnerable in society from the plague of nuisance calls.
Baroness Seccombe (Con)
My Lords, most of your Lordships have a mobile, probably along with a landline at home. Many elderly people have just a landline that, very often, is their link to the outside world. For a frail and elderly person receiving a call on a long dark night, imaginations can run riot and it can be quite terrifying. I congratulate the Minister on this initiative, but is she able to tell me how it will be policed and whether she has any advice for consumers?
Baroness Neville-Rolfe
The Information Commissioner will enforce these new regulations and has the power to issue fines of up to £500,000 against organisations that breach the law. However, my noble friend is right that it is also important to know how to prevent nuisance calls: register with the TPS; report numbers when they come through; and help your elderly relatives to do so. Ofcom is working with the TPS to improve things. This is a complex area and we have to move forward gradually on a number of fronts.