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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, if he will make it his policy to prevent companies using local numbers from which calls are forwarded abroad for the purposes of marketing and other nuisance calls.

Based on an analysis of reported concerns, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has previously estimated that approximately 12% of nuisance calls carry 'spoofed' Calling Line Identification (CLI), but this does not mean that all the calls have originated from overseas. The Government has recently consulted on making it a requirement for direct marketing callers to provide valid CLI. The Government plans to bring this measure into force in due course.