Baroness Altmann – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Altmann on 2016-09-12.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to stop cold-callers who try to lure people into pension scams.

Baroness Shields

The Government takes the threat of pension scams very seriously. We are committed to protecting consumers from such scams, by raising awareness and pursuing scammers when these crimes occur.

The Government has established Project Bloom, a multi-department, multi-agency forum for officials to monitor trends, share intelligence on emerging threats, and help co-ordinate action to tackle scams. Members include the National Crime Agency, police forces, Pension Wise, regulators and key Government departments.

We are also taking forward a range of legislative measures to tackle nuisance calls, which will increase consumer protection and choice by strengthening the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) ability to take enforcement action against organisations that break the law. Recent actions include a measure in the Digital Economy Bill that will strengthen the ICO’s direct marketing guidance by giving it statutory status. We are also exploring proposals to extend the ICO’s powers of compulsory audit to more of the organisations that generate nuisance calls; and the options for enabling the ICO to hold company directors to account for breaches of the direct marketing rules.