FREE CALLS TO GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS

That this House welcomes the decision by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and major mobile telephone companies to make it free to call DWP 0800 numbers, including the crisis loans service, which had been costing 9,000,000 callers per year up to 40 pence per minute from a mobile telephone; congratulates the staff of Leeds Citizens Advice Bureau for their campaigning and research on behalf of claimants pressing for free telephone calls; notes that this will make a tremendous difference to the 12 per cent. of UK households, many of them amongst the poorest in Britain, who only have access to a mobile telephone and do not have a landline; and urges other Government departments, particularly HM Revenue and Customs, to take action to end the current situation, where people in the most urgent need of a financial safety net face a bill of up to £12 for a half hour call to 08 numbered Government helplines.