Victory at last in our nuisance call fight

New laws to end nuisance marketing calls and text messages are to be enforced within weeks.

UK Culture Secretary Sajid Javid is to dramatically lower the threshold of what is considered a spam call or text and give watchdogs the power to hit firms behind them with fines of up to £500,000.

The step signals a major victory for The Sunday Post. For the past two years, we have campaigned tirelessly against companies bombarding millions of people a day with nuisance calls and texts.

As the law stands, cases of nuisance calls can only be investigated by the Information Commissioner’s Office if it can be proved the company has caused “substantial harm or distress” to the consumer.

Now the Government wants to reduce this so the ICO only has to prove the calls from these companies have caused “annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety”.

Mr Javid said he now plans to change the law after a rapid six-week government consultation was announced on Friday.

He said: “Companies have bombarded people with unwanted marketing calls and texts, but have escaped punishment because they did not cause enough harm.

“Being called day after day may not be ‘substantially distressing’ but that does not make it acceptable. I want to make it easier for companies to face the consequences of ignoring the law and subjecting us to calls or texts we have said we don’t want.”

Consumers registered with the Telephone Preference Service are not supposed to receive unsolicited marketing calls unless they have agreed to receive them from a specific organisation, but millions still do.

There has been a recent upsurge of nuisance calls offering to recover payment protection insurance and spam texts offering debt management and accident claims.

Industry figures show that 30 million people in the UK receive up to a billion nuisance and text messages a year.

Justice minister Simon Hughes said: “Being pestered by marketing calls and texts is annoying at the best of times.

“But at its worst it can bring real misery for the people on the receiving end and this Government is determined to tackle the problem. We have already increased the level of fine available to punish rogue companies.

“Now we want to make it easier to stamp it out by lowering the threshold for taking action against these companies so the Information Commissioner can move more quickly and deal more firmly with those who break the law.”

Richard Lloyd, of consumer rights group Which? and chairman of the Government’s taskforce on marketing consent, said: “Changing the rules so it’s easier for regulators to punish the companies making nuisance calls is a big step forward.”