A SCOTS MP has launched an inquiry into how best to tackle the worst excesses of companies which get their sales staff to make nuisance calls to householders.
Mike Crockart, the Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh and his Wales-based colleague Alun Cairns set up the All Party Parliamentary Group on Nuisance Calls.
It aims to hear evidence about how best to deal with the worst excesses of the unsolicited marketing industry.
It has been set up to help the thousands of constituents plagued by nuisance calls by investigating unscrupulous practices and identifying deficiencies in the current legislation. .
Cumbernauld-based DM Design was fined £90,000 by the Information Commissioner in March after 2,000 complaints were made about its home calling sales tactics.
The fitted kitchen company consistently failed to check if individuals had opted out of receiving marketing calls.
The MPs want to gather evidence into nuisance calls with the aim of finding a solution to the menace.
Mr Crockart said: "I am delighted that the new group has such wide support.
"I have been running a 'No 2 Nuisance Calls' campaign for over a year and have been contacted by many thousands of people who are sick of nuisance calls and texts.
"Whilst my Private Member's Bill will go some way to reforming and improving the industry, it is not the full solution."
He said the inquiry will take evidence from regulators, telecoms providers, consumer groups and, it is hoped, ministers.
It aims to feed proposals to be fed into the Communications Review being undertaken by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He added: "It is time for a proportionate and permanent solution."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article