Richard Burden – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Richard Burden on 2016-01-05.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what his Department’s policy is on capping exceed costs on mobile phone contracts for consumers.

Mr Edward Vaizey

The UK mobile network operators (Vodafone, Three, O2 and EE, together with Virgin Mobile) have signed a Code of Practice on Consumer Billing, which sets out a number of ways help customers to avoid excess charges when exceeding their monthly allowance. The code outlines the need for regular updates on usage, so customers can manage spend. For example, operators committed to sending alerts to customers – usually SMS messages – when they are nearing their bundle limits.

In addition, for contracts entered into after 23 January 2014, consumers can exit contracts without penalty, and hence can switch to another provider or tariff, when the agreed core price (usually the monthly subscription) increases. All communications providers have to comply with these rules when increasing prices.