Nuisance Calls
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-04204, in the name of Liam McArthur, on the no to nuisance calls campaign. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament understands that nuisance calls blight the lives of many people in Orkney and across Scotland; believes that these calls are particularly distressful for older, vulnerable people; is concerned that a quarter of a billion nuisance calls are made to Scots each year and that complaints about silent or abandoned calls in the UK have trebled in 2012; believes that poor regulation is failing to address the problem and that the rise in companies offering redress for mis-sold payment protection insurance and a lack of consumer knowledge are exacerbating the situation; considers that more must be done to tackle nuisance calls and other forms of unsolicited contact, and would welcome a single, simple point of contact for any individual wishing to protect their privacy from unwanted calls, texts, faxes and emails.
17:03
I thank the Presiding Officer for the bit of advertising that she did for this debate.
In bringing this debate to the chamber, I am painfully aware that politicians complaining about those who make nuisance calls may strike many as being a bit rich. Like most MSPs, I imagine, I have played my part in interrupting the odd family mealtime over the years—and not just in the McArthur household.
However, the issues that underlie the campaign are serious and deserve proper recognition, so I warmly congratulate the Sunday Post on its leading role in highlighting nuisance calls and texts. My Liberal Democrat colleague, Mike Crockart, has spearheaded the campaign at Westminster, but I believed that it was important for this Parliament’s voice to be heard in saying no to nuisance calls. I am therefore grateful to the very many colleagues who signed my motion and to those who have stayed to participate in the debate. That show of support demonstrates the cross-party nature of the campaign and the nationwide extent of the problems created by nuisance calls and texts.
The aim of the campaign is to bring an end or at least to reduce significantly the number of nuisance calls and texts that are made. I am hopeful that that can be achieved. In a little more than a month, more than 11,000 people have signed up to the campaign, which is testimony to the strength of feeling about the issue. Many of my constituents in Orkney have been in touch to tell me how fed up they are of nuisance calls to their mobiles and home phones and to family members’ phones—not to mention the deluge of unsolicited texts.
Cold calling has been raised in constituency surgeries for years. In the past, the energy companies were guilty of overstepping the mark in a bid to persuade customers to shift supplier. Thanks to many local campaigns, most of the big six energy companies have stopped doorstep selling, but progress elsewhere has been slow. I recently met a constituent whose elderly mother, a dementia sufferer, was repeatedly called by a company and badgered to take out a broadband package. She finally signed up for the expensive offer, despite not having a computer. It took months to rectify the situation and get the money reimbursed, but at least that case ended positively. Many thousands more cases do not end so positively.
The bottom line is that people should not have to put up with the menace of nuisance calls, which put many vulnerable and elderly people at risk of fraud. The calls and texts can seem threatening and intimidating. To many people, they are just as worrying as the appearance of someone unannounced and uninvited on their doorstep.
It is astonishing that 650 million silent calls were made in the United Kingdom last year alone, which works out as around 50 nuisance calls a year to each Scot. Across the UK, 3 million people will be scammed out of an average of £800 this year, as a result of obtrusive calls.
Something must be done. It is clear that the measures that are in place to shield people from nuisance calls are not up to the job. Like many people, I know that I have not had a fall in the past five years—at least, not one that was not down to some calamitous defending on the football field—I am not entitled to payment protection insurance compensation, and I certainly do not want a payday loan. That does not stop the offers coming thick and fast.
There is no escape, even for people who have signed up to the Telephone Preference Service. According to the Office of Communications, complaints to the TPS about unwanted marketing calls jumped to almost 10,000 in July, compared with just over 3,200 in December last year. In an online poll of more than 4,000 individuals for Which magazine, 76 per cent of respondents said that despite signing up to the TPS they still received lots of nuisance calls. Only 1 per cent rated the service “excellent”; most said that it made no difference.
I think that lots of people know about the Telephone Preference Service, but I understand that the TPS relates only to calls that are generated in this country and that people need to phone the Call Prevention Registry on 0800 6527780 to get overseas calls stopped.
I thank Maureen Watt for that relevant point, which demonstrates the extent to which increasing awareness of the steps that can be taken is part of the solution. However, more needs to be done to crack down on the phenomenon.
The Sunday Post concluded recently:
“It’s clear from the overwhelming response we have had from our readers this problem plagues our daily lives. And yet regardless of asking for them to stop—and sometimes taking steps to halt them—the onslaught continues. The will is there from people to put on an end to this once and for all. Now is the time for the Government to act on that will and strengthen existing legislation.”
Readers of the Sunday Post and the thousands who have backed the campaign want their voices to be heard. People feel under siege and it is time that we gave them the tools to fight back. It is time for the Information Commissioner’s powers to be strengthened to take in all forms of unsolicited contact, and for there to be a single point of contact for an individual who wants to protect their privacy from unwanted calls, texts, e-mails and so on.
Yesterday’s announcement by the Information Commissioner’s Office that it is issuing fines of more than £250,000 to two illegal marketers who distributed millions of spam texts is evidence that the ICO will act, where it can do. However, the figures that I provided make it clear that the ICO lacks the tools that it needs for the job.
Progress can be made through joint working between Scotland’s two Governments and I hope that the minister will agree to work with his counterpart at Westminster to put in place measures to protect millions of Scots from nuisance calls.
I simply do not understand why we continue to allow such calls to be made and why we are so permissive about telephone contact. If the marketing was happening face to face, and payday loan sharks or PPI litigators were knocking on the doors of elderly and vulnerable people in our communities—whether they then ran away or bullied people into making claims—we would, rightly, be up in arms. The fact that the constant barracking, intimidation and hectoring happens after pushing buttons on a phone rather than pushing a doorbell does not make it okay or any less frightening to vulnerable people throughout Scotland. However, that is the everyday reality for too many people. It cannot continue; it must stop.
I thank everyone who has shown support for the campaign and for my motion, and I look forward to hearing what members from other parties and the minister, in particular, have to say.
17:10
I thank Liam McArthur for bringing the debate to the chamber and the Sunday Post for the campaign that it has been running. It is good that a problem that affects people in every constituency across the country, including my own, is being recognised.
Nuisance calls can be broken down into three broad types. First, there are the persistent and annoying calls from people who are trying to sell something, which impact on our busy lives or valuable personal time.
Then there are the alarming calls, when a caller tries to frighten people into buying something. For example, the call will start with the words, “This is an urgent message”, which is clearly meant to make the recipient believe that something is wrong. I have been contacted by a family in my constituency who complained that that had happened to them. They thought that it was bad news about a sick loved one, but, of course, it was about PPI, which did not affect anyone in the household. A number of companies now appear to be willing to spread fear and alarm if they think that it will end up in a sale. I find that astonishing and deeply depressing.
Another form of call is the fraudulent call, when the caller is just trying to rip off the recipient. Such calls can take the form of claims of an entitlement to some sort of refund, but the person will have to purchase a voucher or code to redeem first. Citizens Advice Scotland has had a number of complaints about that type of call. For example, one client reported that his elderly mother had received a cold call to say that she was entitled to a tax rebate of £8,000. She was told that, if she wanted to get the rebate, she would have to buy a cash voucher and hand it over in advance.
Another client received a cold call from a claims handling company, claiming that it could get her £500 in refunded bank charges if she bought a cash voucher for £200. The company told her not to speak to any bank officials.
One of the disturbing aspects of such calls is that they often involve someone calling around to the person’s house. Not only can they contact people by phone; they might end up coming to the door, and the threat of that hangs over people.
Two other forms of nuisance call claim that something is wrong. I recently received a call saying that there was a problem with the Microsoft software on my computer, and I stayed on the line—I don’t have a clue—and logged on to my computer so that the caller could help me with a serious problem. Of course, all that they were looking for was access to my computer and important personal information so that they could use it for their own nefarious devices. Then there are the calls that seek personal and banking information that would allow the caller to access bank accounts and take whatever they liked.
There are a number of ways of dealing with nuisance calls, and some of them have already been mentioned. Numbers can be ex-directory, or we can have caller display and choose the calls that we want to answer. The TPS should stop unwanted sales and marketing calls but, as Maureen Watt said, that service does not cover them all. The police can deal with malicious and harassing phone calls, and people can contact myriad telephone service providers, each of which has a separate number—although approaching them can be too complicated for many people and does not always work.
The people who are most affected by nuisance calls are often the desperate and the vulnerable—the same group that is less able to tackle the complex and confusing systems that currently exist to tackle the problem. That is why I welcome the idea of a single and simple point of contact where people’s concerns could be answered or where they could be given the correct number to contact to have the problem solved and their minds eased. More must be done to simplify the means of addressing a growing problem, and a single point of contact sounds like a good starting point.
The other pieces of the puzzle are legislation and enforcement. Unfortunately, the Scottish Parliament does not yet have the powers to legislate to bring an end to these obscene practices. Until such time as we do, I ask the minister to contact the Westminster Government and work closely with it to urge it to bring in stronger legislation and ensure that any existing legislation is fully enforced.
17:14
I congratulate Liam McArthur on securing tonight’s debate, even if the timing is slightly unfortunate for those of us who are of a particular footballing persuasion. [Interruption.] For a split second, I thought that I was going to get an update, but it turns out that this piece of paper is information about a far more important parliamentary procedure.
I signed the motion and stayed behind to speak in the debate, partly because I get numerous calls every day from companies telling me that I am owed thousands in mis-sold PPI, that they can magically write off all my debts, or that they can get me compensation for an accident that I have never had. Those are examples of the nuisance calls that frustrate us all, but, as I said, they are only part of the reason why I signed the motion. As Mr Dornan highlighted, there are much worse operators than the PPI teams that call people up and down the country.
Just over a year ago, an elderly constituent phoned me, almost in tears, about a contract that they thought they had committed to over the phone. An alarm company had called and told her about various break-ins in the local area. The salesman said that the company would be happy to come and fit an alarm for my constituent free of charge to give her peace of mind. He repeatedly went over in graphic detail exactly what had happened to other properties in the area and what the people in those homes felt like after they had been burgled. Although I have no doubt that being the victim of a burglary is extremely upsetting and that it leads to people feeling unsafe in their own homes, there is no justification for representatives of sales companies to use scare stories to push their products.
After a long phone call, my constituent eventually agreed to the free alarm installation and a date was agreed for it to go ahead. At the end of the call, the salesperson dropped into the conversation that an engineer would call round next week and bring the paperwork so that my constituent could sign the annual maintenance contract, which would run into hundreds of pounds every year. The conversation ended quickly.
My constituent called me as she was worried that the engineer would turn up at her door and install the new alarm and that she would have to go ahead with the expensive maintenance contract, which she could not afford. I was able to reassure her that she had not committed herself to anything and that she could just call the company back, forcefully cancel any appointment that she had made and ask the company to remove her details from its records. Fortunately, that resolved the problem, but only after considerable upset for my constituent. Who knows how many others the company had been calling? Perhaps some of them even went ahead with the arrangement.
A matter of days later, I happened to receive a call from the very same company. The caller offered me the same free alarm and said that I should take advantage of it because of the increasing number of break-ins on my street. Now, I know my neighbours quite well and I think that I would have picked up on any break-ins that had happened on my street. I was a councillor at the time, and like other councillors I received monthly updates on crimes that happened in my ward, so I was able to open the latest report and say, “I can’t see the crimes that you’re talking about. Where is your information coming from? Can I speak to your manager?” The phone was quickly put down on me, but I was able to pass the information on to the trading standards department. It pursued the matter, and happily that saw the company named and shamed in the Daily Record about a year ago, which saw to its demise.
Such calls, which go beyond nuisance, can cause genuine upset and worry, and can persuade people to waste money on expensive services that are not as urgently needed as is suggested. I would like to see such calls screened. In line with the motion, I would welcome
“a single, simple point of contact for any individual wishing to protect their privacy from unwanted calls, texts, faxes and emails.”
17:18
I begin by declaring an interest, which goes beyond acknowledging that, for many years, I worked for the publisher of the Sunday Post, whose role in highlighting the problem is to be commended. In common with other members, such as Mark Griffin, I have been and continue to be a victim of nuisance calls, both to my constituency office and to my home number. For several months, my constituency office has been bombarded as often as three, four or five times a day with automated PPI-related calls, and in common with many people my home phone number seems to be a magnet for unwelcome calls.
Generally speaking, it is the standard stuff—double glazing, kitchens, changing energy supplier or that friendly person who just happens to be conducting a quick survey in my area. At least, that was until last weekend, when we were targeted by an Indian call centre that wanted to discuss the use of a computer software package. During the first of the calls, all of which my young son took, we were told that we owed the company money for using the service, which we did not. It was told not to call back again, but it did so on multiple occasions.
Eventually, the company admitted that we owed nothing at all. However, in a bizarre twist, it literally pleaded with us to purchase the software for £29.99. When my son refused, the person at the other end went a stage further in the begging process, telling him that where we came from £29.99 was a sum that we could easily afford. My stroppy 18-year-old son had enough about him to stand his ground, but how many people might have been browbeaten into purchasing internet security that they simply did not need, in the same way that Liam McArthur’s constituent was persuaded to buy broadband for a computer that she did not have?
The firms that make such nuisance calls are absolutely unrelenting. Two weeks ago, my home was called twice in the space of 20 minutes by the same energy supplier trying to persuade us to move supplier. In recent months, we have also discovered how unwise it is to encourage firms offering PPI services. My wife—out of interest, she tells me—told one of these firms to send out a pack to look over. It was a big mistake. She was called repeatedly—four times on one particular afternoon—by employees of the company concerned who wanted to discuss how they might take her case forward. That sort of nonsense, along with the calls that disconnect as soon as one answers them, is at best irritating. Why should we have to contend with it in our own homes?
Beyond that, however, there is a deeply sinister side to the issue. Citizens Advice Scotland tells of people being scammed for hundreds of pounds at a time as a consequence of cold calling. Indeed, CAS has told me that it has heard of people receiving calls from fraudsters who claim to be from citizens advice bureaux and ask for money.
I have based my speech in this debate, for which Liam McArthur is to be commended for securing, on personal experience. However, I am not the kind of person to be exploited; my stroppy 18-year-old has an even stroppier father when it comes to cold calls. I have also managed to resist the temptation to furnish that nice-sounding chap from Nigeria, whom I have never met but who wants to give me thousands of pounds, with my bank details. However, in these difficult economic times, there are vulnerable people out there who can all too easily be preyed on. For that reason, I fully endorse the call for more to be done in this area.
Of course, this is essentially a Westminster issue and, as we have heard, Liam McArthur’s MP colleague Mike Crockart is campaigning there to get the relevant authorities’ powers enhanced. I am sure that we all wish him well in that regard.
17:22
Listening to Graeme Dey, I could not help but be reminded of Neil Forsyth’s book of Bob Servant’s e-mails.
I thank Liam McArthur for securing this debate and remind the chamber that this is my fourth speech of the afternoon. The problem that has been highlighted is not new; in fact, I suddenly realised that we seem to have become accustomed to it. However, given the stress—and, indeed, the fraud—that can result, the issue is certainly deserving of debate.
I have also realised that in many phone calls I have made recently I start to leave a message when I am interrupted by the person at the other end picking up the phone and saying, “Oh, it’s you! I thought it was one of those nuisance callers.” As a result of these calls, people have stopped answering their phones.
Even more concerning, one of my neighbours in Inverness bought a new phone because she said that there was never anyone at the other end of the line when the phone rang and she picked it up. When she got BT to check the line, it was found to be okay, so she concluded that the phone was faulty. When the same kind of calls continued with the new phone, she then thought that she was being checked out by potential burglars. She was reassured when I told her about nuisance calls; however, she had already been seriously stressed and had spent a considerable amount of money unnecessarily.
Like Graeme Dey, I get my fair share of cold calls, on subjects ranging from payment protection plans to offers for free new kitchens, free double-glazing or free solar energy installation. In fact, one evening, I was told about the fortune that I could make by selling the sunshine energy in Inverness to the National Grid. However, what is happening in Orkney is very distressing. Callers pretend to be part of a Government initiative to help those in financial difficulties write off their debts—and, of course, it all leads to the people in question giving up their bank details.
I signed up to the TPS to stop nuisance calls, but it did not make a blind bit of difference—and, after carrying out some research for this debate, I now understand why. The TPS does not cover recorded messages, not even Sean Connery when he personally called me last year to tell me to vote for the Scottish National Party.
Did you?
I certainly did not. Even Sean Connery could not persuade me to do that.
The TPS does not cover recorded messages, market research, robocalls—whatever they are—or overseas nuisance calls. If someone is registered with the TPS, the burden is on them to identify and report nuisance callers, but try getting the number and try getting the name of the company—it is impossible.
I found some websites that offer to eliminate nuisance calls completely. I thought, “Well, that’s fabulous. I’ll raise that in the debate.” However, that offer comes at a cost or £40 a year or £48 a year, or at a one-off cost of £60 or £100. Basic protection is free but it protects only against unsolicited sales calls and junk mail from United Kingdom companies. Given the number of overseas call centres, that is of little help. I am now so suspicious that I do not know whether those websites are an answer, or whether it is a case of someone trying to cash in with another scam.
I commend the work that was done at Westminster by Liam McArthur’s colleague Mike Crockart, which has attracted cross-party support. Mike Crockart’s motion describes the current
“legislation around cold-calling via people’s homes and mobile phones”
as
“confusing and overly complicated”
and goes on to say that he
“believes that people should be able to guarantee their privacy in a simple and effective way”.
That is not too much to ask.
A briefing paper from the House of Commons library outlines the action taken over the years—including, in 2010, the increase in the financial penalty that is available to Ofcom from £50,000 to £2 million. Following this debate, I hope that if people can find out who is calling them—that includes Sean Connery—they could perhaps report them to Ofcom. Powers given to Ofcom were also revised in 2003 and 2008.
The figure that I found most alarming was that 22 per cent of the UK population have experienced silent calls on their landlines in the past six months—surely that is proof that more is needed to address this increasing problem.
Thank you very much. Perhaps we need to get Dr No on the case. I call Roderick Campbell, after whom we will move to the minister.
17:27
I congratulate Liam McArthur on bringing this issue to the chamber and on his well-considered opening speech. I acknowledge the contribution of the Sunday Post to the debate and I hope for Mr Mark Griffin’s sake that he thinks that time spent in this debate is time well spent.
No doubt we have all been affected by nuisance calls at some point. Indeed, some of us may feel that we have had an inordinately large share of the quarter of a billion cold calls that Scots receive every year. There are many occasions when I avoid answering my phone at home if I do not recognise the number, such is the pervasiveness of the problem. That is not to mention nuisance texts—I received a text myself on a night out last Friday, yet again regarding mis-sold PPI. If I had had the number of accidents that companies seem to think I have had, I would be an extremely unlucky person indeed.
Unsolicited calls and texts are at best annoying. Many people have the confidence to ignore calls from unidentifiable numbers, to hang up on unwanted sales calls, or to delete unsolicited texts, but—as Liam McArthur rightly highlights in his motion—many people do not have that confidence, particularly older, more vulnerable people. Cold calls can make their lives very difficult indeed.
I have had a significant amount of constituency case correspondence related to unwanted phone calls. One man who contacted me described the calls as a plague. I have every reason to believe that that is true of many people’s experience, not to mention the real irritation of the silent calls. Simply switching off or ignoring calls is often not an option. Millions of people depend on their phone for genuine communications.
The TPS is one way to limit incoming calls. The Information Commissioner’s Office is responsible for the regulation of the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003—the statutory guidelines concerning the communication of marketing materials by phone, text, e-mail and fax. Regulation 21 gives teeth to the preference service, which prevents marketeers from making unsolicited calls to people who are registered on the preference service.
As for the problem of identity, regulation 24, which has been referred to already, requires that callers must identify themselves and provide a business address or Freephone number on request. However, the role of the ICO is limited. It can act on complaints only when the caller is identifiable, UK based—as Maureen Watt suggested, that is a problem—and when the recipient is registered with the TPS or can prove that they asked the callers not to contact them; Mary Scanlon referred to that. It is quite a difficult test.
What other options are there? I have contacted BT on behalf of constituents to obtain information on its procedures. BT advises customers to report the source of the call to their landline—if the source can be traced—to the BT nuisance calls bureau.
I discovered that many of the major UK mobile networks operate their own nuisance or malicious calls bureaux. O2, Orange, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Virgin and Tesco are a handful of the service providers that offer such a service. Clearly, those service providers must operate within constraints, just as the ICO must do. Although those services are welcome, there is a lack of uniformity in procedure across the board.
I therefore fully understand the demand that Liam McArthur has identified for a clear, simple method of reporting nuisance calls and texts across the board. The purpose of the Liberal Democrat campaign is commendable but, ultimately, the powers that are required to make any substantial changes in the area lie with Westminster.
If the Liberal Democrats want to make a real difference, I suggest that they should have a word in the ears of their UK Government colleagues at Westminster—even if, no doubt, the minister concerned would be happy to support their efforts.
17:30
I congratulate Liam McArthur on securing a debate on an issue that is of concern to a large number of people throughout Scotland and, indeed, the UK.
I am grateful to all members who have participated in the debate from all the parties represented in the chamber this evening. I echo and endorse their explanations of the nature of nuisance calls and the problems that they cause. It must be acknowledged that the problems are mostly of a minor nuisance nature but, as many members have pointed out, in some cases such calls can be a much more serious matter.
As many members have said, individuals have been encouraged by very persuasive people to part with money to enter into contracts that are plainly onerous, unnecessary, unwanted and unwise. I have encountered that situation, and such contracts are extremely difficult to unravel—even if the law is on the person’s side—after the ink is dry on the contract or, rather, the deal is done over the phone.
Such calls can cause real hardship, especially for senior citizens, for whom these ostensibly plausible calls are of particular concern, especially those senior citizens who are alone and perhaps welcome human contact. The act of defrauding people in that situation is particularly to be deplored.
Members have made their points very well. I think that we will all agree that not everyone is as stroppy as the Dey family has openly boasted about being. Not everyone has the resilience of character to resist—as Mary Scanlon revealed that she did—the blandishments of Mr Connery.
As many members have rightly pointed out, the legislative power over the matter rests with the Westminster Parliament. The Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 are the most relevant pieces of legislation. The Ministry of Justice south of the border has policy responsibility for the 1998 act and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has responsibility for the 2003 regulations. Both pieces of legislation are, in fact, administered and enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office, for which the Ministry of Justice is the sponsor department. The powers of the ICO are drawn from the 1998 act.
To avoid any doubt about the matter, I should point out that the Scottish Information Commissioner has no responsibility for the issue.
The ICO in England is accountable to Westminster. It is fair and useful to point out that the ICO has powers to take formal action against those who breach the 1998 act and the 2003 regulations. The powers include the ability to conduct audits, to serve an enforcement to compel an organisation to take action to bring about compliance with the 1998 act, and to serve a civil monetary penalty up to a maximum of £500,000. The ICO can prosecute those who commit criminal offences under the 1998 act, and it reports to Parliament under section 52(2).
Some members mentioned unsolicited text messages, which the regulations also cover. Prior consent is required to send such messages, unless a consumer has provided their mobile telephone number when purchasing a product or a service. When signing a contract, many of us take care to tick the box to say that we do not wish to receive calls. That is sensible; otherwise, one is bombarded.
I fully recognise that the responsibility for dealing with the issue rests largely with Westminster, but I was interested in a number of comments that members made and not least in the examples that Roderick Campbell gave of steps that can be taken, short of any change in the rules. Perhaps public awareness of those steps is insufficient. In its contact with many vulnerable groups, does the Scottish Government have a role in heightening awareness of the steps that can be taken now?
We all have the power to raise awareness. By securing the debate, Liam McArthur has served that purpose, and all of us have done that by participating. We can and do convey messages. The debate will help with that end.
I am delighted to join people in recognising the excellent work that the Sunday Post has done. As far as I am aware, it has—more than any other newspaper—taken up and run with the issue. I have with me a copy of the Sunday Post that I will share with members, as I enjoyed reading it earlier. The front page says:
“Wrong Number: 650 Million Silent Calls A Year Just One Firm Fined”.
That is probably enough to show the Sunday Post that we all recognise that it has done excellent work, as we would expect from the foremost family newspaper in this country.
The Sunday Post is to be praised for taking up an issue. An awful lot of the time, we feel that the press are unduly negative or are—heaven forfend—focusing on politicians’ misdeeds. In this case, a newspaper has taken up and run with a campaign.
We can have more success from the campaign. I am pleased to note that the Information Commissioner’s Office announced yesterday that it is set to issue two penalties that will total more than £250,000 to two illegal marketeers that are responsible for distributing millions of spam texts. We all agree that such action is required to stamp out such behaviour. I understand that the ICO also intends to publish a list of the most complained-about companies in order to name and shame them.
We recognise the legitimate role for companies to market their services. As the enterprise minister, I do not want to impede or prevent the legitimate marketing of good products—that would be wrong and a balance must be struck. However, the action that the ICO has announced is welcomed by everybody who is involved in the debate. Exemplary fines are one of the most effective measures to tackle the problem.
I welcome the debate and I thank all members for their speeches. We would like to have the powers in Scotland to tackle the issue more effectively, but we recognise that the authorities down south are taking steps. Rather than be churlish about that or score points, we welcome such powers. We would like to see more swift action.
I will arrange for the Official Report of the debate to be sent to the relevant UK ministers, with a letter from me, to draw attention to the fact that the debate has reflected well the concern of the public about such matters north of the border, which is also felt south of the border.
Meeting closed at 17:39.