Lord Fowler
Main Page: Lord Fowler (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Fowler's debates with the Home Office
(4 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberIs the Minister aware that I have lived, worked and visited India, and I know both good and rogue call centres there? The BBC recently exposed call centres that target UK elderly people, saying that their computer is frozen and giving them a phone number for technical support that will unfreeze it in return for payment. These are vulnerable people who are currently in self-isolation. They are elderly people with no family support and are worried stiff that they will lose their only means of visual communication, so they pay up. Will the Minister urgently link up with the City of London Police fraud action force and the National Crime Agency to put real pressure on the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation to act on this matter?
Minister. I was going to add “Baroness Williams of Trafford”, because I did not introduce you the first time.
That is quite all right, Lord Speaker.
I thank my noble friend for that question. He raises a very pertinent point, and I myself have had representation from older people who are worried about scams. As regards our work with India and the Indian Government, my noble friend mentioned the City of London Police, which, as I said, is the lead force for economic crime and has partnered with law enforcement and industry to combat call centre fraud from India and other jurisdictions. It has, for example, partnered with Microsoft, which has led industry efforts to combat this kind of fraud, and as a consequence of that partnership the City of London Police has supported Microsoft in the initiation of a number of enforcement actions, the most recent of which occurred in the Kolkata region. Obviously, things that happen overseas are a matter for the overseas authorities. Moreover, this type of fraud is global, and quite often you cannot trace where it originated.
My Lords, I know that law enforcement agencies are working extremely hard. In fact, every day I am on operational calls with various law enforcement agencies, and my mother was targeted by exactly the same scam last week. The FCA has conducted the ScamSmart campaign to raise awareness of this type of thing, particular pension and investment scams.
The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has the next supplementary question. She is not here.
Thank you, Lord Speaker, and well done to everyone for getting us to this point. Given the rise in Covid-related fraud and scams in the UK, where we know unscrupulous criminals are exploiting fears about the virus in order to prey on older and vulnerable people, as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said, what are the Government doing to ensure that local government capacity, especially in trading standards departments, is fit for purpose, and what direct enforcement action has the Competition and Markets Authority taken in respect of companies breaking the law?
My Lords, I am sorry; I am looking for the appropriate bit in my notes but cannot find it. The noble Baroness raised a very important point. Particularly at this time, when people are feeling vulnerable, it is really pertinent to raise that point. Obviously I am not in the pensions department, but I will take that point back and alert my colleague, my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott, to it.
My Lords, I fear that, again, the time allowed for this Question has elapsed, so we will have to move on, with apologies to those who have not been able to ask their question. We come to the fourth Oral Question, which is from the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes of Cumnock.