writetothem
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mysociety
User suggestion: Make phone number field mandatory
User comment: "I got an automatic reply from my MP saying:
"please ensure that you have provided your full name, home address including postal code and contact telephone number. If you have not already done so, please re-send your email with these details included as I cannot reply without them."
How can I do this? And perhaps you should make the phone number a compulsory field."
Or as a half-way measure we could keep it optional, but put a message next to it saying that some MPs require it. Maybe.
User comment, exactly the same point: "On sending to Jeremy Quinn MP, the reply notes that even if you send a self penned letter email but it does not contain a contact number it will not be deemed important. On the contact detail list on your site, it has phone number as "optional" and once sent one can not add the phone number, so could you put a note on this in your information so we are aware that the phone number is important."
The telephone number field is optional and I did not include one. However, the automatic reply received from my MP (Amanda Solloway, Derby North) states that she will not reply at all if a telephone number is not given. This necessitated re-sending the email directly.
Please consider making the telephone number field mandatory.
I’ve now had two automatic replies (one from an AM, one from our MP) which say that they can only reply if they’ve got full contact details including phone number. Your site had phone number as being optional, so I left that blank (as I get a lot of spam phone calls so I only give it if required). Please could you clarify if they do need a phone number in order to reply to my query?
If user doesn't supply a phone number, we should populate the field with the Commons switchboard number. That'll learn 'em.
I received a reply saying it had been received but I would not get a reply as I had not included my telephone number with my details. Im sure on your instructions this was not deemed necessary. I thought you should be aware of this matter as others may have thought the same.
I just emailed my MP through your site and received a message back from his account stating the message would only be read if a telephone number were included.
On your site it said phone number was optional, so I chose not to include it.
I've had to re-email the MP with my phone number but also cutting and pasting my original message- so I don't know if it will even get through.
I imagine this is the MPs way of ducking out of part of his mailbag, but I just wanted to flag it to you- perhaps it's better to have a blanket inclusion of phone numbers?
ISTR someone suggesting that we make the phone number field mandatory for those MPs where we discover they are doing this. Not sure how practical that is?
AFAIK there is no requirement to include a phone number in any correspondence (unless of course you want a phone reply). Parliament's own guidance says you should include your address, but that's it.
The belligerent in me says we should just include a random number for drama where users don't provide one. MPs who want one to satisfy their own strange requirements won't notice it's not real, MPs who actually try call it will get a call fail, assume it's a typo, and (hopefully) try contacting another way.
Two more user support emails about this today (I assume because people are getting the 2-week survey after the peak around the Ratcliffe issue).