Statement: National Accident Helpline welcomes Budget crackdown on nuisance calls

In yesterday’s Budget, the Government pledged to spend £3.5 million to explore ways to protect vulnerable people from nuisance calls. This funding will be used to trial and develop innovative call blocking technology, to conduct research and to launch a campaign aimed at raising awareness of how consumers can reduce and report nuisance calls.

Every day, nuisance calls, texts and emails cause distress and anxiety to innocent – and often vulnerable – individuals. The problem has become endemic in recent years, with 175,000 complaints made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the last year alone.

National Accident Helpline is delighted that the Government has allocated funds to help end the scourge of nuisance calls. We have been tackling the issue since 2012 and our Stop Nuisance Calls campaign launched in 2014 called upon the government to take stronger action. We see the Government’s recognition that more needs to be done to protect people from these unscrupulous marketing practices as another positive step.

National Accident Helpline never uses cold calls, spam texts or spam emails to attract consumers. We take our role in helping genuine victims of personal injury extremely seriously, and never make contact with individuals unless they do so in the first instance.

On the Chancellor’s announcement, Russell Atkinson, CEO of National Accident Helpline, said “While we welcome the Government’s decision to allocate funding to protect people from nuisance calls, this will not tackle the root cause of the issue. Tackling the blight of nuisance calls will require decisive action from the Government to halt the demand from UK companies for consumer leads generated in this way.

We believe individual organisations and the industry itself must also take ownership of the issue. National Accident Helpline will therefore be challenging those in the personal injury sector to commit to ethical marketing practices.”