Imposing fines of up to £500,000 on the companies behind cold calls and nuisance text messages is to become easier under changes to the law being made by the government.

The move follows tens of thousands of complaints about cold calling.

Currently, firms can only be punished if the Information Commissioner can prove a call caused substantial damage or substantial distress.

But from April 6, that legal requirement is to be removed.

More than 175,000 complaints were made to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) last year about nuisance calls and text messages.

If these companies make an excessive number of unsolicited calls, they should be fined.

This is how I deal with cold callers: Ask cold callers to remove your information from their records, then find out the caller’s number from a landline by dialling 1471 after the call and complain.

The calls are intruding in my life for no reason whatsoever. All they are interested in is selling.

I would never, in a million years, buy something over the phone. I advise you to do the same.

Cllr Salim Mulla (via email)