Plans to crackdown on nuisance marketing calls

Ministers are drawing up plans to make it easier to penalise telemarketing companies that plague members of the public with unwanted calls.

Culture Secretary Maria Miller is to launch a consultation this year on lowering the threshold for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) to take action against offending companies.

Despite an increase in the maximum fine it can impose to £500,000, the ICO still received 120,310 complaints relating to unsolicited marketing calls made between April and November last year.

Currently the calls must cause "substantial stress" or "substantial damage" for the ICO to impose sanctions, but Mrs Miller said the consultation will consider whether there should be a lower threshold.