The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-13714, in the name of James Kelly, on the Which? campaign calling time on nuisance calls and texts. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes the aims of Consumer Association’s campaign, Calling Time on Nuisance Calls and Texts; understands that a report published in Which? suggested that eight in 10 people find such calls and texts a disturbance to their daily lives; believes that they can be particularly distressing for older people, including those in Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Blantyre, and notes the campaign’s aims, which include making senior executives more responsible for the actions of their companies, the introduction of mandatory caller identification to make it easier for consumers to report companies and the assessment of how data is collected, used and traded.
17:06
I start by thanking the members across all parties who signed the motion, thus allowing me to bring the issue of nuisance calls to debate in the Parliament chamber this evening. I also thank Which? for the work that it has done in support of the Consumer Association’s campaign calling time on nuisance calls and texts.
In many ways, this is a timely debate, coming on the day that we see the company Home Energy and Lifestyle Management fined £200,000—a record fine by the Information Commissioner’s Office—for its activity involving nuisance calls. I find it staggering that a company can embark on an activity that involves 6 million unsolicited calls. It is no wonder that there was a high level of complaints from members of the public.
It is quite clear that that kind of activity is completely unacceptable. A lot of it can end up focusing on people who are pensioners and those who are vulnerable. The job of the Parliament tonight is to unite in pledging that there will be an action plan to protect consumers, pensioners and vulnerable people and to send out the message to companies that embark on unscrupulous calling campaigns that their activity is not acceptable—it is not on and we will seek to root it out.
I mentioned pensioners. When I speak to people who have been the victim of such calls, it strikes me that for pensioners, many of whom live on their own, the telephone is a very important device. If they live alone, they do not have a lot of personal company, and they rely on the phone to get calls from friends and family. I know of cases where, because of nuisance calls, pensioners have become afraid to answer the phone and are therefore caught in a situation where they might not answer the phone and so might not receive a call from a family member. At other times they answer the phone and on the other end is someone who is trying to take advantage of them and who is intimidatory in the calls that they make.
I have spoken to other members, and we all know that this is a big issue across Scotland’s constituencies and regions. At the heart of the activities of those companies is that they are seeking to gain money from the people on the other end of the phone. Some of them do that through unscrupulous business activity and some are simply con merchants and scamsters. Someone phones up and says, for example, that they are from Windows technical team, your computer is broken and you need to give them your credit card details immediately in order to stop a virus moving through your computer. Someone else may phone and say that you are entitled to a free grant or a free payment, but it is all about trying to extract bank card information so that they can use it to take money unscrupulously. It is totally unacceptable.
There is no doubt that the scale of the problem is huge. A billion of these calls a year are made in the United Kingdom. Eight out of 10 people find such calls annoying and a third of recipients find them intimidating. The people on the other end of the phone can be aggressive and intimidating. That is also unacceptable.
Nuisance calls are a big issue in my constituency. There are a lot of pensioners in Rutherglen, Cambuslang and Blantyre, and many people have raised the issue with me as a matter of growing concern over recent years.
Some companies treat people and the process with absolute contempt. This week’s Sunday Post revealed that, although fines of £1.4 million have been handed out for unacceptable activity, more than £1 million has not been paid. More must be done to ensure that companies realise that that is not on and that fines must be paid. One company that featured in the Sunday Post article, Cold Call Elimination, which had been fined £75,000, was phoning people and pretending to be from the Government or British Telecommunications. The contempt of such companies for people is totally unacceptable.
I would like the Government to publish an action plan to tackle nuisance calls, setting out that such calls and other unscrupulous activity are completely unacceptable. More can be done to ensure that companies take the issue more seriously, by requiring a director at board level to take responsibility for calls.
We need to focus on data and people’s rights. Companies that make calls gather data from emails and financial transactions; people need to be better advised of their rights in relation to the passing of data to other parties.
The Government could consider its procurement processes, so that if it farms out calling activity it ensures that it takes on only companies that act properly.
I want to highlight that, in relation to the example that the member gave, the Scottish Government was not responsible for the company’s activities. However, I take on board the general point.
I accept that point from Mr Wheelhouse and I was careful not to make any link between the Scottish Government and the company that is in the news today. I am well aware that the Scottish Government does not use that company for the green deal.
More could be done to work with telephone providers to provide caller identification. The Telephone Preference Service could be made better use of, and a public information campaign could highlight the issues that I have talked about.
I think that there will be a lot of agreement among members, who are concerned about the activities of companies that make nuisance calls. We need to say loudly and clearly that such activity is unacceptable. We need to expose and root out the con merchants and the scamsters, to protect vulnerable people and pensioners in our communities and to ensure that they feel safe when they answer the phone in their own homes.
17:13
I congratulate James Kelly on securing the debate and commend his passion in articulating his concerns on the subject.
I signed the motion within seconds of finding it in my inbox. Its arrival could not have been better timed. I had just put the phone down on my 78-year-old mother. Mum had been telling me about an unsolicited call that she had fielded earlier that day. The call had come from a young man who was offering a bargain deal on a system that he claimed would ensure she never received cold calls again. She was told that she was getting a special offer because the area she lives in, just outside Aberdeen, had been targeted by unscrupulous firms. For the half-price rate of £2 a month for three years she could be assured of no longer being subjected to nuisance calls. All that she had to do—members will know what is coming next—was provide her card details, including the security number on the back of her card. When she told him that she had no intention of providing such details, he promptly hung up. Who knows how many folk have fallen for that scam? As my mother rather amusingly put it, she has all her marbles
“but there are some poor old dears out there!”
It was good to see the cross-party support that the motion garnered, though perhaps that was not surprising, given that it was lodged during the summer recess when, if they were like me, colleagues were being exposed to the full annoyance of nuisance calling. Some days when I was at home over the summer, I felt under siege from automatically generated calls. The parliamentary office offered little respite, as it gets regular calls, too.
I am led to believe that the automated calls in which no one comes on the other end when you answer are actually probing in nature and aimed at determining whether anyone is at home during the daytime and therefore whether follow-up calls are likely to prove worth while. The unwarranted intrusion on people’s lives—whoever they are—is frankly unacceptable.
I should declare a very personal interest in the subject, which is born of something that happened to my family a little under a year ago, when the shameless nature of these companies was laid bare to us. I had just taken a call from the hospital, summoning us to my dad’s bedside as his health was deteriorating rapidly, when the phone went again. It was a gentleman phoning from India, I suspect. Before I could stop him, he had given me his name and advised that he was calling to discuss an issue that I was having with my computer. He was rather bluntly advised of how welcome his call was, that we were dealing with a family crisis and that he was not to call again. Fast forward a week. As we were about to leave home for dad’s funeral, the phone went again. It was not only the same scamming firm but the very same individual.
On behalf of me, my family and many constituents, I offer my unreserved support to the Which? campaign. The problem is not going away. In a five or six-month period earlier this year, the Information Commissioner’s Office received 61,000 official complaints about nuisance calls or texts. As it is reckoned that just one in 50 who receive such calls bother with contacting the regulator, we can deduce that in reality millions of them are being received.
I am grateful to Which? for providing sample comments from constituents who talk of receiving up to 20 calls a day from companies ignoring TPS registration; already challenging caring situations being impacted on by the menace; and a fear that the calls are being used to determine whether a house may be empty. As the constituency MSP representing those folk, I am one of the eight out of 10 people who support greater accountability over nuisance calls, including the fining of company directors personally for rule breaches.
17:17
I apologise for the fact that I will need to leave the chamber early this evening. I congratulate James Kelly on securing this important debate, which mirrors one that I led three years ago on the same issue. As Graeme Dey rightly said, the problem is not going away, so it is important that Parliament has another opportunity to voice its strong and united support for the campaign to call time on nuisance calls.
The issue affects people across the country and the campaign enjoys strong cross-party support. I commend Which?—the Consumer Association—for its tireless campaigning on the issue. It is right to argue for more action and deserves credit for some of the progress that has been achieved. I do, though, have one complaint about its briefing for the debate. It fails to acknowledge the pivotal role played by my former colleague, Mike Crockart, who led the campaign at Westminster during the last Parliament. Indeed, Mike Crockart was instrumental in encouraging Which? to take up the issue and they worked extremely well together to gather support—from around 250,000 people at the last count—and secure important changes.
Credit is due to The Sunday Post, too, for championing the cause and encouraging people to share their experiences and sign up to the campaign.
The campaign has been successful. Since we previously debated the issue, the Information Commissioner’s Office has received increased powers to take enforcement action against firms that make nuisance calls. Members in the previous debate all called for that, and I am pleased that those calls were heeded by the previous UK coalition Government. Under the change, the ICO no longer has to prove that calls are causing
“substantial damage or substantial distress”
before taking action. I dare say that the change played a role in the ICO earlier today handing out a fine of £200,000—the largest yet, as James Kelly said.
Although progress has been made, more is needed. Which? is calling for legislation to be introduced to hold board-level executives to account for the actions of their company. At the very least, we need companies—at board level—to take compliance with the law on consumer consent seriously. BT and SSE are leading the way. Others must follow, and the UK and Scottish Governments can play a part in encouraging them to do so.
Which? also wants to see caller line identification made mandatory for all marketing calls. Without that, it is hard to see how those bombarded by nuisance calls and texts will be able to report a company or make a request to be removed from their database. That is imperative. Many of my constituents, like those of other members, have clearly found the telephone preference system to be ineffective, so those additional safeguards are needed.
I heard of a case earlier today in which a friend was called by the British Government grants department. In return for paying his taxes and maintaining good relations with the British Government—no mean feat for an ardent yes supporter, I would suggest—he was entitled to a grant of £1,800. When asked his age, my friend said 123, at which point the line strangely went dead. Such calls are a nuisance, but describing them as such risks underestimating the effect that they can have, particularly on the vulnerable. One Orkney constituent described them as being like a “personal assault”.
The last time we discussed the issue I highlighted the case of a constituent whose elderly mother, a dementia sufferer, had been repeatedly called and pressed into taking a broadband package. She finally relented and signed up for the expensive offer, despite not even having a computer. It took months to get her money back. At least that case ended positively. Many more do not.
If companies were doing this face to face—if payday loans sharks or payment protection insurance litigators were knocking on the doors of the elderly and vulnerable in our communities and then either running away or bullying them into making claims—we would be up in arms. Just because the constant badgering and intimidation happens over the phone does not make it okay or any less frightening to vulnerable people, yet that is the everyday reality for far too many. It cannot continue; it must stop.
I again thank James Kelly for allowing the debate to happen, and apologise to him, to you, Presiding Officer, and to the chamber for not being able to stay until the end of the debate. I congratulate Which? and wish it well with its on-going campaign to call an end to nuisance calls. I hope that Mike Crockart feels a sense of justifiable pride in a very worthwhile campaign that he helped to start.
17:22
I sincerely congratulate James Kelly on securing the debate. I endorse everything that has been said—in particular, what has been said on harassment, bullying and scamming of elderly and vulnerable people.
There cannot be one of us who has not raged against unsolicited calls. I have had to suffer them only when I am more likely to be home—during recess, for example—but goodness knows what other people have to put up with. I would just be stepping out of the shower, be weeding at the bottom of the garden or have my arms laden with ironing at the top of the stairs, when I would have to run to the phone—especially if I was waiting for a vital phone call—to find no one on the line or to hear a sales pitch. It got to the stage where I simply did not answer the phone and instead let the answerphone gather the bona fide messages. My sons used to ask, “Why don’t you pick up the phone, mum?” and I would say, “Because it’s always unsolicited calls.”
My late father was always full of mischief and had his own way of dealing with such calls. When he was in his 90s, he would settle himself down for a long meandering conversation with the caller and then, when he had had enough, he would declare that he had diarrhoea. Inevitably the caller would put down the phone. The caller is not to blame—the person is just doing their job and probably has a first-class chemistry degree. They would always apologise profusely to my father. I thought that what he did was entertaining until he deployed the same excuse on me when he was fed up talking to me.
It is mainly elderly and housebound people who cannot escape the telephonic bombardment. The campaign by Which? hits all the right buttons. Through Which? I have comments from my constituents in Midlothian. They tell us only what we already know. One person said:
“I am disabled and sometimes trip trying to reach the phone”—
before—
“it goes to answer machine.”
Another said:
“Normally I ignore calls from numbers I don’t know but recently due to having to deal with care agencies for a family member I have to answer my phone and when it is a nuisance call it infuriates me.”
Another person said:
“I’m a pensioner and they just don’t give up even when you say you’re not interested.”
They probably redouble their efforts in such cases. Another said:
“I receive nuisance calls, even at 8.30 on a Sunday morning. I want something done to stop them”
and another said that
“Many older people I know get very worried and frightened by these calls and feel they have to respond.”
I took things into my own hands, because I had had enough: I have installed my own solution. It is a BT phone that has a call-blocking device. I am not in product placement, so I will not tell members which model it is. The phone does not ring unless the caller identifies themselves. I have a list of callers who are automatically put through. If someone is not on my list, I accept their call, if I am in, by pressing 1, or a message has to be left. Therefore, if any member wants to get in touch with me, they will have to get on my special list. I have not had another nuisance call since I got the phone, so I am liberated.
People with such devices will no longer find themselves hearing the phone ring—when they are waiting to hear from their family in Canada or are in terrible circumstances such as those that Graeme Dey described—and rushing to answer it, only to discover that it is a nuisance call. The people who make such calls are only doing their job—it is a terrible job to do—but no matter how much you resist and tell them not to call, you will get calls again.
I no longer receive nuisance calls. Any member who wants to be on my list should come and speak to me. I recommend my solution to everyone; it is not too expensive. As I said, I am not in product placement—I am not getting paid to do this by BT, which has its faults—but if people go on the internet, they will find that it is a sound solution.
17:25
Follow that.
I, too, extend my thanks to James Kelly for securing a debate on a practice that is not just an irritant but can be an extremely stressful experience for vulnerable people. Elderly people, who may live on their own, often feel disappointed when the phone rings and they struggle to the phone only to discover that, rather than it being a child or a grandchild on the line, it is a cold caller trying to sell insurance or whatever. Even more irritating is the increasing number of nuisance calls that are automated voice recordings.
I was off work for a few weeks recently, suffering from a rather nasty attack of shingles. Anyone here who has experienced that debilitating condition will be aware of just how painful it can be and the lethargy that goes with it. During that time, our phone rang at least half a dozen times every day. The callers were from companies or lobbyists trying to sell me something and the calls were often automated, with only silence on the end of the line. Having to get out of my chair to answer the phone and being wakened from an exhausted sleep were not pleasant experiences. I assume that such calls are made every day, even when I am not at home, so I can imagine how irritating they must be to people who are housebound. They are also frightening when there is no voice on the other end.
I was still not feeling 100 per cent when, on returning to Parliament last week, I got on to the 5.46 train from Aberdeen, having been dropped off at the station by my husband. I had my luggage with me, but I suddenly realised that I had left my handbag in the car, so I was stranded in the station with no phone, no money and no cards. The very helpful ScotRail staff phoned home for me and gave me a welcome cup of coffee, but my husband very nearly did not respond, because at that time of the morning he assumed that it was probably a nuisance call. Fortunately, he eventually got the message and returned my handbag in time for me to get the next train to Edinburgh and arrive at Parliament shortly after the start of the Health and Sport Committee’s meeting.
I mention those personal experiences to highlight how unsolicited telephone calls can affect people’s everyday lives. I am grateful to Sarah Chisnall for working with Which? to provide me with some 300 comments from people in my region—North East Scotland—who have complained about such calls. Obviously, I do not have time to quote all the comments, but two stuck in my mind. One person said:
“I am fed up with my 80-year-old parents being pestered by computer companies, accident claim companies etc. They don’t even own a computer but are constantly called by these people. And my 83-year-old father is receiving at least 6 unsolicited calls a day. His phone is his lifeline, and he is now scared to answer it due to these cold callers.”
Like many other people, I have signed up to TPS, but it is consistently ignored, and I agree with the constituent who said:
“It’s an invasion of privacy! We’ve opted into TPS and still get inundated with sales calls, including abusive scam computer calls from overseas.”
If I may digress for a moment, it is not just nuisance calls that can be irritating. At home, we have a fax machine that can whirl away at 4 am offering products that we do not need and waking us up in the process. When the phone rings at that time of day, I immediately think that there must be some family emergency.
I very much welcome the proactive calling time campaign by the Consumers Association, because cold calling has gone far too far. I hope that this week’s action by the Information Commissioner’s Office in giving a £200,000 fine to Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd for making nuisance calls will set an example to others. I am not going to make any suggestions about what the UK Government should or should not do, but I feel that businesses that are based in Scotland should be encouraged to implement best practice and to make a voluntary commitment to tackling nuisance calls.
I again thank James Kelly for sponsoring the debate.
Thank you, too.
17:29
I, too, congratulate James Kelly on securing the debate.
It is unquestionable that the volume of nuisance calls has increased in recent years. With little oversight or accountability, more and more companies are using technology to create mass phone messages and unsolicited calls to individuals throughout the UK. Richard Lloyd, the executive director of Which?, described nuisance calls as a “scourge on people’s lives”.
Indeed, just before I left the office this evening, my assistant received a nuisance call on her mobile phone. It was not only an automated message but a fraudulent call that was aimed at scaring her by warning that her payment protection insurance was at risk. Ironically, she had just read about similar scenarios that had been received from constituents.
Fortunately, my assistant knew that the call was a scam and disregarded it; unfortunately, however, many others might not be so up to date with or aware of the latest tricks that are being employed during these calls. As colleagues have pointed out, many of our more vulnerable constituents might not discern the potential harm, even though some are at risk of having their personal information compromised and/or stolen.
Although fraudulent calls represent the most extreme of cases and although most calls are just irritating, action must still be taken to stop things escalating further. It has been said that six out of 10 householders say that nuisance calls are so bad that they no longer want to answer their own telephone. It is sad that more than half of our constituents no longer want to answer their own phone for fear of unsolicited callers, and it is time to hold unscrupulous businesses accountable before 10 out of 10 households no longer do so.
The Communications Act 2003 gave Ofcom the power to deal with the persistent misuse of a communications network or service, and Ofcom included in such misuse the generation of unsolicited and unwanted calls and silent calls. Its research reported that during a six-month period in 2012 almost half of all adults with a land-line experienced a silent call. That figure was up a quarter on 2011. Over the same period, 71 per cent of land-line customers said that they had received a live marketing call and 63 per cent said that they had received a recorded marketing message.
Currently, the Information Commissioner’s Office also enforces breaches of the privacy and electronic communications regulations. In April 2013, TalkTalk was fined £750,000 for making around 9,000 abandoned or silent calls in 2011 and, as James Kelly has pointed out, the ICO just yesterday fined the green energy company Home Energy and Lifestyle Management Ltd £200,000.
Although I am happy that some companies are being held accountable for their actions, such fines represent little compared with the action that still needs to be taken. Currently, a consumer can be taken off a calling list by including their number on the telephone preference service. However, as Nanette Milne has suggested, companies, undeterred by that, have found loopholes to contact consumers, and few penalties have been imposed on companies contacting those on the TPS list. One of my constituents has advised me that she receives nuisance calls every day, frequently from the same people; indeed, Graeme Dey highlighted the same issue. On most occasions, there is no number available and no method of redress. Despite being TPS registered, my constituent receives such calls incessantly. Which? has recommended the introduction of a mandatory caller line identification for all marketing calls that will provide a key piece of information when reporting an unwanted caller or when contacting a company to request removal from its database. Clearly that would be a welcome step in the right direction.
People might inadvertently give permission for unsolicited callers to contact them by ticking boxes on various websites; sometimes those tick-boxes provide permission for companies to give their information to third parties. I think that, in order to raise awareness, it would be beneficial to have an industry standard for privacy notices. Further to that, individuals should have more rights and control over personal data, and it should be made easier for them to revoke their permission or consent to be contacted.
There seems to be a lack of uniformity in nuisance calls and a reluctance to punish those who are in contravention of the rules and practices that are already in place. The Which? campaign to create legislation that will
“make senior executives accountable by law for their company’s nuisance calls”
would make companies less likely to breach guidelines. Nevertheless, greater accountability, caller identification and more control over how personal data is used are badly needed to bring this problem under control and grant our constituents peace of mind.
17:34
Like others, I congratulate James Kelly on highlighting an issue that many of us have raised, and I also congratulate Which? on its excellent campaign and raising this issue with parliamentarians.
Members have highlighted not only cases involving their constituents but their own personal experiences. I, too, have placed myself on the TPS, with the same results that others have had. Indeed, following my commitment to the TPS, I found that the number of calls increased as a result. Therefore, there are many challenges. In fact, I think that, if the industry does not wake up to some of the challenges that people face, people will disconnect their land-lines. I think that, if consumers did not require land-lines for broadband access, many people would disconnect them, as most people make mobile calls. They may move towards doing that if the issue cannot be addressed.
I have found from personal experience the same thing that other members have described—that answering telephone calls at home has just involved dealing with nuisance calls. That is a challenge that we face.
I want to highlight a particular case that was raised with me by Margaret and Jim Watson, who members may be aware of, as they gave evidence in the Leveson inquiry in connection with the sad loss of their son and daughter, Alan and Diane. They raised a specific issue with me in connection with the fact that Margaret received more than 80 calls a month from organisations that made unsolicited calls. She tried to raise that issue with many of those companies directly, and she made a very good point to me on a number of occasions. She asked how we make complaints about those companies and what the complaints process is when the individual at the other end of the phone will not identify the organisation. That is why I think that compulsory caller identification and requiring companies to give that information is crucial.
The consumer should not have to pay for that. That is another challenge. Christine Grahame set out a very effective way of dealing with those calls, but investment is required to do that, and many consumers are not in a position to put in place such call-barring systems. It should be up to the telephone providers to provide that service free of charge.
I absolutely agree with Paul Martin. I was sick to death of such calls, and I was in a position to do that. However, I absolutely accept that people should not have to do it.
That is where the industry can take matters forward. It needs to recognise that consumers will not be in a position to do that. Perhaps we could move forward if the default position was for providers to put in place a call-barring service, similar to the one that Christine Grahame described in talking about screening, to prevent those with unidentified numbers from making contact with people.
The industry has to consider technological advances and look at perhaps barring overseas calls. It has to deal with many challenges in that respect.
I want to touch on a relevant point that Kenny Gibson referred to. Many of us use price comparison websites and tick or untick boxes at the bottom of disclaimers. Who that information will be provided to has to be much clearer. That is the challenge that many of us face when we ask companies who provided information to them. That is usually a third-party marketing company, and it is very difficult to find out who disclosed the information in the first place. We should put in place an action plan to deal with that issue.
In conclusion, it is welcome that there has been a significant fine to deal with the green energy company Home Energy and Lifestyle Management. We need to think about whether automated calls in any form should be considered an appropriate way of contacting people. Should we look at a possible ban on automated calls? I do not know anybody who wants an automated call. We have to consider whether that is an appropriate means of making contact with consumers. Perhaps we should consider that practice in the future.
I say well done to James Kelly in the debate. I hope that we can move forward in partnership with the Government and with the appropriate action plan.
17:39
I thank members who have taken part in the debate. In particular, I thank James Kelly for initiating it and his work in recent months to highlight the issue of nuisance calls, which affect far too many people across Scotland.
I add myself to the list of people who have suffered the consequences of nuisance calls. For many, nuisance calls and texts are perhaps an unwelcome annoyance. That is the limit of the impact that they have had on me, but we have to recognise, as many members have said, that they can have a far greater impact in many cases. They can cause significant distress, particularly for the elderly and the vulnerable.
James Kelly was the first of a number of members to mention the isolation that many elderly and vulnerable people feel and how much worse that becomes when they feel that they cannot pick up the phone, which could also mean missing a vital call from a family member. The people who organise the nuisance calls have to take a long, hard look at themselves and at the nature of the impact they are having on vulnerable individuals.
The contribution that Which? has made to promoting the consumer agenda, as well as the excellent work carried out by its task force, only serves to highlight how important this issue remains. As a number of members have stated, eight out of every 10 consumers surveyed say that they are regularly cold called at home. What is even more worrying, as some members have indicated, is that a third of those also suggested that the calls leave them feeling intimidated. If people are feeling intimidated by a sales call, that is clearly unacceptable.
Of course, regulation of nuisance calls and texts is currently reserved to the UK Government, although the new Scotland Bill will devolve certain consumer and competition powers to the Scottish Parliament that will give us more of a chance to shape a more effective Scottish response to those consumer issues. Notwithstanding that, I do not believe that the relevant clauses of the draft bill currently give full effect to the intention of the Smith agreement. However, we shall ensure that the further powers that do come to Scotland are put to maximum effect, and we will continue to seek to ensure that the bill’s provisions fully reflect both the spirit and the letter of the Smith recommendations on consumer protection and competition policy. In that context, a consumer and competition policy working group is currently considering optimal arrangements for delivering consumer and competition services in Scotland under the bill.
At the heart of our approach is the need to put the interests of consumers first. The Scottish Government will work in partnership with interested groups such as Which? to create an integrated consumer protection regime in Scotland that provides greater clarity on where to turn for help and advice. In the meantime, we will continue to work with the UK Government to ensure that the regime governing nuisance calls and texts is made as effective as possible. The changes that the UK Government has proposed to legislation around enforcement will have an impact and will make it easier to impose fines on companies that aggressively target consumers through unsolicited calls and texts. In that regard, I am sure that members across the chamber were horrified to hear of Graeme Dey’s experience at a very tragic time for him. The fact that the same individual called back because he could not take on board that he was contacting someone at an extremely distressing time and should leave them alone tells us that we have a lot of work to do on this problem.
The UK Government has made a commitment to consult on mandatory calling line identification, which is an issue that James Kelly, Kenneth Gibson, Paul Martin and Christine Grahame raised in their speeches. I cannot recommend any particular company or technology, but it was interesting to hear that there are technologies available to cut out numbers that do not have calling line identification. If a mandatory calling line identification scheme was to be extended across the country, telemarketers would be required to display a valid telephone number and would not be permitted to withhold that number.
We believe that the UK Government can go further, as it is in the process of reviewing a number of other recommendations made by the Which? task force, including giving regulators, notably the ICO, further powers to hold individual board members to account when their companies use consumers’ personal data for marketing purposes. The task force also proposes a review of the UK Government’s nuisance calls action plan, to set out ways in which enforcement action could be made more effective. The task force also suggests that the UK Government lead the development of a cross-sector business awareness campaign to share best practice and that public authorities support the take-up of accreditation schemes such as the Telephone Preference Service. I have to stress my own experience of that, because I am registered with the TPS but unfortunately, like Paul Martin, I still get a high volume of nuisance calls.
This is a complex area and there are no instant solutions, but the Scottish Government believes that far more can be done at the UK level to make regulation and enforcement work more effectively for consumers, and we will work with the UK Government in so far as we have a role to make that happen. We believe that the UK Government should seek to work with industry to introduce a mandatory code of business practice and establish that personal consent to third-party marketing has a clear expiry date, which I think would help with a problem that Paul Martin and other members identified. It is also vital that the terminology used in consent boxes—Kenneth Gibson referred to them—that indicate that the consumer has or has not agreed to receive calls or texts is clear, fair and fit for purpose.
The Scottish Government also believes that the current UK-wide regulation of nuisance calls and texts is needlessly fragmented in that the Telephone Preference Service, the Information Commissioner’s Office and Ofcom all currently play a regulatory role. That fragmentation means that victims of nuisance calls and texts often face having to register their complaints with different organisations, depending on the exact nature of the complaint. Indeed, because of that situation, Which? has set up a web portal to direct consumers to the relevant regulator. Data shows that only around half the people who used it went on to make a full complaint, suggesting that many people find the current complaints process too onerous.
We appreciate the work that all three organisations do to articulate good practice and provide advice to businesses and the general public, but the Scottish Government believes that there is still room for improvement. That is why, in our paper “Consumer Protection and Representation in an Independent Scotland: Options”—I am not making this point for constitutional reasons—we made a strong case for a single body that would have had responsibility for regulation of nuisance calls and texts. That would have allowed for more effective protection of the public than is provided under the current UK regulation.
Nuisance calls can also lead to significant financial difficulties for consumers, particularly in the area of payday loans. We see too many cases in which unsolicited marketing calls from payday loan providers and debt management companies have resulted in a consumer’s financial position being jeopardised. The devolution of power to reduce the proliferation of establishments that offer those services would allow the Scottish Government to address concerns more effectively.
Before I close, I want to address a point that Christine Grahame made in her intervention, if I can be added to her “special” list. Especially given my community safety role, I note that vulnerable people can suffer trips or falls trying to answer a phone call, perhaps when they are expecting a family member to call or waiting for an emergency call. Especially if the call comes at an inappropriate time of the day, they might expect it to be a family member in distress. If they have an accidental fall or trip, it could cause a house fire or a long-term injury, and we know that injuries such as hip fractures can be fatal for vulnerable individuals. Again, I urge the companies that are involved to look to their consciences on that front.
Nuisance calls and texts are undoubtedly an issue for which there is no quick fix. However, the Scottish Government is committed to acting decisively on the issue. We will work to ensure—with the UK Government, where that is appropriate—that the needs of consumers are put first, taking Scotland-specific issues into account in a way that the current fragmented arrangements have failed, perhaps, to do.
The greater powers on consumer and competition policy that are being devolved to our Parliament under the new Scotland Bill offer us the opportunity to transform consumer protection in Scotland, and I assure members that the Scottish Government will use the powers effectively in that respect.
Thank you all for taking part in this important debate.
Meeting closed at 17:47.Previous
Decision Time