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 0845 business rate telephone numbers for benefits claimants.

Calls to claim benefit by telephone are free as the Department uses 0800 free phone numbers for these lines. The use of 0845 numbers were inherited from previous Government and this Department has since introduced 0345 numbers, but will retain the 0845 prefixes for the time being given it can still cost less to call these numbers from some operators’ packages.

Any charges that apply to these calls will be set by the customer’s telephone or mobile operator. Charge variations will occur due to operator packages and individual price plans. We are aware of possible concerns about call charges to our enquiry lines so we will offer to call a customer back if concerns are raised over the cost of the call.