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Nuisance Calls

I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I presume that your words are in reaction to my earlier speech.

This debate felt like a consolation prize after the fall of my private Member’s Bill last year, but it has been an excellent debate, which has aired many of the issues that we identified during our all-party parliamentary inquiry. It is a complex area. Although my speech was described as a tour de force, there were many other points that were raised by others that I did not even mention, such as charging for caller ID, the effectiveness of the Telephone Preference Service, the EU directive, the exponential growth in the number of calls and the sense of a structure for regulators.

The hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) described my short speech as a master class. I think the subtext was that I had bored her into submission, and I apologise for that. She introduced the idea of naming and shaming, which is already happening, but perhaps needs to happen even more.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) missed the first five minutes of my speech. I am happy to repeat them for him later. He brought up the subject of spoofing, and talked about the response from constituents. He made the point that people are suffering quietly, and not complaining about the issue, but when they are asked it is clear how angry they are.

The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), in attempting to steal my headlines, mentioned the Sunday Post a number of times, so I will trump her and mention the fact that it is @PoliticalYeti on Twitter. It has 602 followers—I am sure that that will help them a little bit. She contrasted the ability of the companies to make calls with the inability to make complaints by phone, which bothers me very greatly. She mentioned my alter ego, Boris Peep, so perhaps I should finish by giving an update. An organisation called Shopachecksms-uk—the wage day advance company has obviously passed or sold on my alter ego’s details—has offered me a cash loan of £500 delivered to my door. I want to make it clear in Hansard that I do not need it, thank you very much.

I thank the Minister. He is absolutely engaged and we have a good ministerial team that will be able to move things forward. We have had action on some things and not so much on others, but the best thing is the commitment.

This is a complex area, but it is clear that there is willingness across the House to see action. I am confident that we will see that, but I urge the ministerial team to be bold and ambitious, as such action has the benefit that it will also be popular.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered nuisance calls.