§ Mr. LewisTo ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will list the telephone recorded message services which have been terminated by British Telecom under the Telecommunications Act 1984 due to the offensive content of the service.
§ Mr. Atkins[holding answer 28 July 1988]: British Telecom does not have powers of its own under the Telecommunications Act 1984 to terminate these services. Its ability to do so arises out of the terms of its contracts with message service providers. As such, the actions it takes are a commercial matter between the parties concerned subject to BT fulfilling the obligations of its licence.
Nevertheless, I understand from BT that the company has withdrawn its facilities from 15 services following adjudications by the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services (ICSTIS) that the services were in breach of the ICSTIS code of practice. This is in addition to cases in which service providers have withdrawn recorded message services voluntarily when ICSTIS has notified them that complaints have been lodged.