Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Damian Hinds and Sarah Green

Monday 25th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Green (Chesham and Amersham) (LD)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to tackle fraud.

[The Minister for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds)]

Fraudsters should have no space to operate, and later this year we will publish our renewed strategy on how we protect the public and businesses, reduce the impact on victims, and increase the disruption and prosecution of fraudsters.

[Sarah Green]

The Minister knows that fraud accounts for more than a third of all crime. Last year, Thames Valley police in Chiltern and South Bucks, which covers my constituency, had 194 Action Fraud victim care reports. One constituent told me, with great distress, that they had stopped reporting scams, because they think that Action Fraud has become a crime reporting agency and is no longer a crime investigation agency. We need a new service dedicated to effectively tackling online fraud, not just recording it. Will the Minister commit to establishing a new online crime agency to do just that?

[Damian Hinds]

I can confirm to the hon. Lady that we are making constant improvements to Action Fraud through the City of London police, and are also investing in a wholly new Action Fraud system for 2024. In the meantime, I encourage her constituent and all our constituents to report fraud. One particularly striking statistic is that more than 76,000 scams have been automatically taken down as a direct result of our constituents forwarding scam emails to the suspicious email reporting service.