Several UK politicians have supported a call to lower the cost of phone calls made from stolen handsets for which the handset owner is liable.

The Early Day Motion – a motion tabled by MPs for debate but holds no legal weight – was put forward on the back of research from consumer magazine Which? that revealed nearly six million people were victims of mobile telephone theft in the past five years.

“This House recognises that such bills can be massive especially when stolen telephones are used for expensive international calls, sometimes by organised crime rings,” stated the motion.

The motion, put forward by Mary Glindon, Labour MP for North Tyneside – with the support of 21 other MPs as signatories, added that the MPs believe that mobile telephone companies have insufficient incentives to find solutions to this growing problem because they “continue to make profits on the bills of their innocent customers”.

“This House urges companies in these circumstances to charge the lower wholesale rather than the much higher retail costs which could dramatically reduce the cost to those who have suffered both theft and a sometimes huge penalty,” the motion concluded.