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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent steps his Department has taken to provide protection to people suffering from nuisance telephone calls.

The issue of nuisance calls is a priority for the Department and we are pursuing a range of options for reform. This includes both legislative and non-legislative measures, which will help to better protect consumers. On 30th March 2014, we published our Nuisance Calls Action Plan that includes proposals for legislation to enable Ofcom to share information more easily with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The measure became effective on 15 July and will help in ICO’s efforts to take more enforcement action against companies that deliberately continue to break the rules. Also, we will shortly consult to lower the legal threshold that will enable ICO to take more enforcement action against organisations that breach the regulations, including those that currently manage to avoid having monetary penalties issued to them. Further details about the range of work that has been completed and is also underway is outlined in the Action Plan, which can be viewed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/nuisance-calls-action-plan-unveiled