Chi Onwurah – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Chi Onwurah on 2016-04-11.

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what progress he has made on reducing the number of robocalls received by consumers.

Mr Edward Vaizey

It is unacceptable for consumers to be harassed by nuisance calls, and this Government continues to make progress tackling this issue. The latest figures from the ICO show that reported automated calls accounted for approximately 42% of total calls reported to them – a drop of 3% since the start of the year. This is thanks to tougher enforcement against organisations making automated calls. The ICO recently imposed its largest fine ever of £350,000 on Prodial Ltd for making over 46 million automated nuisance calls. This is 70 times the amount of the maximum possible penalty issued before 2010 – when fines were capped at £5,000, and average fines were considerably less.