The hon. Gentleman has taken the words right out of my mouth. The key principle of this case, which applies to all commercial transactions, is that one should not have to pay for what one has never bought. There is indeed a comparison with fraudulent items on credit card bills.

Why should my constituent, Mr. Gasson, and others have to pay BT money that we now know was fraudulently generated? BT, and no other organisation, is the organisation with which he has the commercial relationship as a customer.

I accept that BT is a victim too. It did not wish this to happen and it did not intend to defraud people. However, BT is a giant company that has an overview and understands what has happened. It is much better placed than individual customers to pursue matters along the chain of comms companies involved in the process and to recover the costs in that way. BT is very keen to absolve itself of any blame. It sent me a briefing document that said:

"although the cost of these calls appears on telephone bills, originating communications providers (such as BT) have absolutely no control over the calls in question (although we are obliged to carry them) and receive only a tiny proportion of the revenues involved".

BT has maintained throughout that it will have already paid the money up the chain of operators, arriving eventually at the fraudster, before it becomes aware of the customer's problem, and so then has to recover the money from the customer.

But BT is in business and should know about business risk. It signed up to a system whereby it pays out before it gets paid by customers. If a hit has to be taken, BT, as a business, should take it. It is unfair that the customer is being punished. France Telecom has not punished its customers; it has waived charges for proven fraudulent internet rogue dialler calls. It is disappointing that BT does not have the same sense of duty to its customers. Instead, demands have been issued, lines have been blocked for outgoing calls, and many of my constituents have been disconnected. Even a local charity helpline was cut off for non-payment. It was reconnected after my intervention, but the dispute has still not been settled.

BT has made some ex gratia payments, ranging from almost nothing to £250. I have told BT that its system is inconsistent. It has not demonstrated to me that it has any underlying rationale. The only consistency lies in its unwillingness to waive the offending charges. Ex gratia payments are left to the discretion of individual advisers; that has been admitted to me in letters. This leads me to believe that BT's response is driven more by concern about how its reputation might be perceived than by real concern for its customers.

The heart of the matter is that it is wrong to pursue innocent individuals for charges that we now know were fraudulently generated. To be fair, BT has acted to improve the situation for subsequent and future customers by issuing free premium rate service barring, free software downloads and a more rapid warning system to alert customers whom they suspect are being defrauded.