PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
CALLING TIME ON NUISANCE CALLS (29 June 2015)

That this House recognises that too many members of the public are bombarded with nuisance calls and texts which is a huge issue of concern; is aware that the Which? campaign, Calling Time on Nuisance Calls and Texts, found that eight in 10 people said that cold calls were an annoying interruption to their daily lives and one third saying they have felt intimidated by them, with more than half of people (56 per cent) saying that they had been discouraged from picking up their landline telephone when it rings owing to cold calls; recalls that following this campaign the Government published its Action Plan to tackle the issue and a subsequent Which?-led taskforce was established; supports the series of recommendations this taskforce set out for the Government, regulators and businesses, including introducing legislation to make senior executives more responsible for the actions of their company; calls on the Government to introduce mandatory caller line identification for all marketing calls to enable consumers to more easily report an unwanted caller or to contact the company and request to be removed from their database; and further calls on the Government to look at whether the rules around how our data is collected, used and traded needs to be tightened so that the right balance can be struck between enabling decent businesses to carry out direct marketing activity where consumers have given their consent for their personal data to be used, and preventing the abuse of their privacy by unscrupulous businesses.

Sponsored by:
Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party)