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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans his Department has to increase the size of fines the Information Commissioner's Office can give to companies and individuals who do not comply with nuisance call legislation.

There are no current plans to increase the civil monetary penalty (CMP) of £500,000, introduced by us in May 2011, which the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) can issue for a breach of the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations 2003 (PECR). The focus of the Department is on ensuring that the existing regulations are more effectively enforced by ICO for unsolicited nuisance marketing calls, rather than increasing ICO’s CMP powers.