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Internet (Rogue Dialling)

My hon. Friend misses the point again. We certainly do not blame people who do not possess burglar alarms for the fact that their house has been burgled. We blame the burglar and the criminal. We do not ask the police to recompense residents who have been burgled. One hopes that they will have insurance. If not, we do not then say, ““Let the police or someone else recompense them””. I believe that it was right that a variety of providers, including BT, which my hon. Friend specifically mentioned by name, wrote off considerable sums of money that would have gone straight on to the scammer under the previous system. In that context, BT or any other provider such as NTL would have lost money as a result of the scam. The blame falls on the scam. We should do what we have been doing—create conditions that take the value out of a scam so that the scammers cannot take the money and scarper after a short while. They cannot then reappear and repeat the activity. It is important to understand the steps that we have put in place to ensure that that happens. As regards specific bills, I suggest that my hon. Friend speak to the service provider that dealt with the cases in his constituency. It is not for the Government to say, ““You””—whether referring to BT, NTL or whatever—““have been a victim of a scam and you should recompense the customer for everything that they repaid.”” Such a generous response to the fact that individuals have been placed in a position of loss by large industrial organisations may well be a virtue, but it is not appropriate for the Government to require it. That is what I said to my hon. Friend at the beginning. If he had explained the precise target that he was after, I could have been more helpful, perhaps in advance of tonight’s debate, about ways of dealing with the problems of his constituents. What I want to ensure for the future is that the regulator—in the case of ICSTIS, the delegated regulator, which effectively has authority devolved to it from Ofcom—the Government and the industry can address the issues in such a way as to deal much faster with any scam that appears. We want to be able to seize it, get a grip on it and prevent it from happening. I think that everyone involved would acknowledge that it took some time for people to realise just how costly the scam could be for customers and some time to get up to speed in responding to it. That, however, has now been achieved and I would remind my hon. Friend and the House that— The motion having been made after Ten o’clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.