MINIMUM CALL CHARGES

Early day motion 450, tabled 18 March 1999 by Harry Barnes (Labour). Signed by 35 members.

That this House believes that people's telephone bills are unnecessarily high due to the practice adopted by telephone companies of imposing minimum charges for calls that might only last seconds when a caller reaches voicemail or an answerphone, send a short fax or tries but fails to connect to the Internet or just talks briefly on the phone; and urges British Telecom and other telephone companies, which make hugh profits, to scrap minimum call charges and only charge the consumer for the time actually spent on calls.

Signatures by party: Labour 24, Liberal Democrat 6, Labour/Co-operative 2, Plaid Cymru 1, Scottish National Party 1, Unknown 1.