In advance of the debate in parliament next Thursday (3pm Westminster Hall), we have published and circulated two briefings setting out the position as we see it.
We welcome comments entered in the box below.

We welcome all options offered to consumers to protect themselves against nuisance. We must not however see these as being the answer for those who are practising illegal activities.

We urge supporters to sign the petition organised by the 'Sunday Post' newspaper - published in Dundee by the reknowned DC Thomson. Although this is essentially not a party political issue, we and the Sunday Post are grateful to the Scottish Lib Dems for hosting an on-line version of the petition at www.no2nuisancecalls.net.

Please read the update on the position regarding nuisance calls in the briefing shown below.
A copy of the latest coverage in the 'Sunday Post' is also available to view.

We react to news of a cold call victim having to take personal action, and succeeding.

This highlights the need for our proposed change in procedure for dealing with cases of “Nuisance calls”.

People in the UK are plagued by unsolicited nuisance phone calls from various organisations. This is despite regulations and statutory powers that are in place to prevent them.

It is currently down to Ofcom and the ICO to police this area, but they have demonstrated that they are unable to operate in the necessary manner. Both bodies operate on the principle of regulating (i.e. limiting) the scale of impropriety rather than setting out to eliminate it. For example, Ofcom actively does nothing about call centres that generate Silent Calls within specified boundaries.

Nuisance Calls Agency

The fair telecoms campaign would like to see a new specialist agency be established to tackle nuisance telephone calls. It would provide citizens with a single point of contact for unsolicited marketing communications and silent calls.

The Agency would ensure proper use of the existing statutory powers. It would be focussed on stamping out the practices of:

• Unsolicited marketing calls, without consent;
• Unsolicited marketing text messages and faxes;
• Recorded message marketing calls; and
• Silent calls.

We think that Citizens Advice will be the ideal organisation to host this new agency. It already provides the statutory consumer advice line (formerly Consumer Direct by OFT). From April 2013 it will become the statutory advocate for the consumer interest when it takes over from Consumer Focus. It already has much of the contact with citizens and consumers that is required. As such we believe that it holds the skills, knowledge and experience necessary to operate this new agency.

For more information see:

• Outline proposal - a new agency to deal with "Nuisance Telephone Calls" (PDF)