Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what his Department's policy is on using telephone lines for which there is a charge for the Department's customer service lines or helplines.

The Department’s policy is that calls to claim benefit by telephone should be free so we use 0800 free phone numbers for these lines. For other enquiry helplines the Department has been introducing 0345 numbers but will retain 0845 prefixes; this will enable the customers to choose the most cost effective option dependant on their own call tariff. Any charges that apply to these calls are set by the customer’s telephone or mobile operator and vary depending call plan type and the time of day at which the call is made.