EDM  House of Commons


quote ....

EDM 602  -  27 Jan 2005    Paul Tyler MP

GOVERNMENT USE OF 0870 PREMIUM RATE TELEPHONE NUMBERS

That this House notes the recommendation of the Central Office of Information that the use of 0870 premium rate numbers by Government departments is inappropriate, where UK citizens are seeking information to which they are entitled; further notes from answers to Parliamentary Questions tabled by the honourable Member for North Cornwall that these numbers are extensively used by departments; believes that such use should be discontinued immediately, irrespective of whether the profit is made by a private contractor or taken into the departmental budget; and congratulates the BBC Radio Four programme, You and Yours, for its campaign on this issue.

end quote

Well done Paul.  I'm in his adjacent constituency, in South East Cornwall, and hope that Colin Breed, also a Lb Dem will take the view as seriously as Paul.

interestingly, a gov't dept cannot charge for something unless statute or regulations allow it. there is authority for this. if someone had the time and money, they could challenge the use of 0870 numbers by analogy. whether it would succeed is another matter.

Hi, I am new to the forum but not new to the subject!

There is no doubt that "You and Yours" (BBC Radio 4) is our best friend at the moment, it must have taken some guts for a programme that actualy used 0870 to take up our cause.

Welcome also to Paul Tyler, lets hope he keeps it up.

The most worrying thing about the programme was the progress report on the infiltration of our doctors surgerys by the likes of Alistair Campbell & Co.

Basically he works for a company called NEG who are ringing up all the Doctors in the UK, offering to put in a new telephone exchange for nothing, provided said GP changes his number to 0870. The doctor pays nothing, but the patients do by the cost of the calls.

There is considerable hope that the Ministry of Health will step in on this and make it illegal.

J

wrote on Jan 30^th, 2005 at 10:14pm:

interestingly, a gov't dept cannot charge for something unless statute or regulations allow it. there is authority for this. if someone had the time and money, they could challenge the use of 0870 numbers by analogy. whether it would succeed is another matter.

What is the relevant case law on this?

wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2005 at 9:59am:

What is the relevant case law on this?

Done a bit of research myself, and the Local Government Act 2003 allows 'best value' authorities (i.e. including local authorities) to charge for providing dicretionary services.  So presumably OK under this Act to use 0845/0870 for advice lines unless the authority is under a duty (rather than merely permitted) to provide the service.

See http://www.local.dtlr.gov.uk/guidprop.pdf

Very interesting, but most of all it tells that 2 jags has an 0870 number.

:)