Brendan Ryan (Labour)

On Committee Stage one of my colleagues dealt with this amendment. This section provides:

"Offences in connection with telephones.

13.—(1) Any person who—

(a) sends by telephone any message that is grossly offensive, or is indecent, obscene or menacing, or

(b) for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety to another person—

(i) sends by telephone any message that the sender knows to be false, or

(ii) persistently makes telephone calls to another person without reasonable cause,

commits an offence.

Who could argue with those points? Given the eloquence of the Minister of State's previous speech about the modern, forward-looking, communications-focused country, what would be more sensible than to look at the two most significant forms of communication, text messages and electronic mail?