Fraud Strategy 2026-29

Debate between Adam Dance and Angela Eagle

Tuesday 7th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Dame Angela Eagle)]

It is a great pleasure to be in this Chamber with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) on securing the debate. I also thank him for how he has set out some of the very difficult problems that all our constituents have faced as technology has provided the wherewithal to industrialise frauds and scams, often from abroad.

There is now no way to get a handle on what they are doing without involving ourselves in international co-operation. As technologies advance, the threat of these kinds of activities evolves, and we have to do what we can to try to keep pace with them and hopefully get ahead, so that we can do some prevention rather than trying to pick up the pieces after terrible things have happened.

At this juncture, I express my empathy and sympathy with the hon. Member’s constituents, some of whom he has mentioned today, including Christopher, who was the subject of a romance fraud, and Jason, who was subjected to fraudulent behaviour and the temptation of wealth creation that was not really there.

One thing that has struck me very strongly since I took up this post three weeks ago, and from my own constituency caseload over many years, is how invidious and difficult it is for the victims of these kinds of behaviours to admit that they have fallen into a trap, because many of them feel a bit silly and embarrassed and do not know where to turn to try to get redress. The way that redress has worked in this country in the past has not kept pace with the industrialisation of fraud, its international aspect and its sophistication. It has been difficult, therefore, as the hon. Member for Yeovil recounted, for systems to keep up.

People feel not only embarrassed, worried and a bit shameful that they have fallen into those traps, according to my constituency caseload, but they do not find it easy to get redress. I congratulate the hon. Member on his constituency work, and the way he has used the systems that we are putting in place to ensure that the money can be refunded in many cases, though obviously not all.

My esteemed colleague Lord Hanson leads on this area of work. Despite all the innovations in our constitution since I have been in this House, we do not allow Lords to speak in Commons debates, thank goodness. I am here, however, and more than happy to talk to Lord Hanson about some of these issues.

Before I come to the points raised, I want to make some simple but important ones of my own. Fraud is high volume and high harm, for the reasons the hon. Member for Yeovil outlined. Hon. Members will know that is true from their experience in advice surgeries. It deprives law-abiding people of their hard-earned money; it hits businesses with sometimes crippling losses; it destroys lives and livelihoods; it destroys confidence and mental health; it drains our economy; and it weakens our resilience and undermines confidence in the rule of law.

This problem is directly linked to my work as Security Minister, because it helps to fuel some of the most serious threats we face as a country, as well as causing the human harm we have heard of today. Our response has to match the scale and impact of the threat. I believe the Government have acted with clarity and ambition, with the new fraud strategy published in March, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I thank him for acknowledging that he was happy to see elements of that, such as crucial international action and the replacement of Action Fraud—it was so difficult to see any action coming from it that it would have been better named “Inaction Fraud”. Thankfully, that has been replaced.

As the strategy is put into effect, it will include Report Fraud, victim-support schemes and charters on advertising. In its broadest sense, the strategy brings together all parts of the system, including Government, law enforcement, industry and civil society, and goes further and faster in our fight to disrupt fraudsters and protect the public. The strategy is built on clear principles: to disrupt criminals, to safeguard people and businesses, to respond strongly, to protect victims and to enforce the law.

The Government have invested £250 million and will work with everyone to clamp down on the fraud epidemic. We will try to make that money work as hard as possible in co-operation with other parts of the system to get best value for money. To some extent, that is my answer to the question the hon. Member for Yeovil asked about whether £250 million is enough: it is not a bad start, and we will see how it develops to ensure that we cover the bases that we need to cover in this area as quickly as possible.

At the heart of the new approach is a new online crime centre, which has over £30 million of investment to bring Government, law enforcement, GCHQ and industry together in one place. Its mission is clear: to identify the technological enablers of fraud, which are rapidly evolving and industrialising, as I said before; to disrupt fraud at scale; and to deliver high-impact interventions at speed. The online crime centre is working on those things even as we speak.

Safeguarding and supporting victims is also at the forefront of the strategy. We are strengthening public awareness through an expanded “Stop! Think Fraud” campaign because it is important to remember that, as plausible as some of these people are, the more we can increase the suspicion and resilience of the people who interact in these systems, the more likely we are to be more resilient to fraud. I acknowledge absolutely that the psychological cleverness of a lot of fraud is something to behold. These people are very clever at what they do. They are very sophisticated in how they draw people in. All of us have a duty to try to warn individuals about the kind of dangers out there from those very sophisticated approaches.

[Adam Dance]

I thank the Minister for her answers. Does she agree that we should fully regulate the property training industry? That is a huge issue across the whole country and affects lots of people. As the Minister rightly said a second ago, people do not come forward because they are embarrassed, which is also why, unfortunately, they take their own lives.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

We need to look at where the issues are, where the loopholes are and where people are being exploited. We need to see what we can do, both as law enforcers and as regulators, to close those loopholes. I am not going to say yes immediately to the hon. Gentleman’s question, not least because it is not directly in my bivouac, but he can rest assured that we will look at the trends and see how we can harden the target, if I might put it that way. A whole range of individuals can be scammed and fall for very sophisticated frauds without realising—and by the time they do realise, it is too late.

Obviously the private sector, specifically the banking sector, has an important part to play with the warnings that it puts on its electronic banking systems. We need to do an enormous amount of co-operative work in all this, to ensure that our online crime centre can pick up and collaborate with all parts of the system that is there to try to protect people. As I said earlier, “Stop! Think Fraud” is an important part of that. If something looks too good to be true online, it almost certainly is. We have to get that education out there, be it through influencers or other types of people, to the people who are potential victims in this area.

[Adam Dance]

On banking, one of the biggest issues for Christopher was that his carer was turned away by Lloyds many times and sent online. We often see that issue because banks are shutting and we have banking hubs. Does the Minister agree that the banks should work more with people with neurodiversity and disabilities and work more to see those people face to face? There should also be more support in our banking hubs.

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The banking hubs are at an early stage of their development. They are a good development. At the moment, they are less sophisticated in the services that they can offer. We have to work with banks, which are—because most of their customers wish it—going online and leaving the high street. That does leave in a more vulnerable situation people who perhaps are more vulnerable to being scammed online. In our work with the banks, we have to try to make the case that they need to have special relationships and ways of dealing with those who are neurodiverse or who may be easier, in some ways, to fool. In my experience, almost anyone can become a victim of this kind of fraud if they get caught at a vulnerable moment or when they are upset about something, so we have to deal with education in a much more holistic way, rather than just categorising people. But I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point.

Using data from Report Fraud, we are improving our ability to identify emerging fraud trends and local fraud hotspots, which enables us to work with police forces and community partners to deliver targeted interventions where we see they are needed most. We are just beginning to get to the stage at which we can start spotting these kinds of trends and trying to prevent them, rather than trying to pick up the pieces after a fraud has happened.

It is equally important to co-ordinate the fraud protect networks, for which City of London police has responsibility. Bringing together local, regional and national law enforcement, the network helps to reduce the threat of fraud and repeat victimisation through consistent prevention messaging, practical safeguarding advice and targeted public engagement. I think that as we see more of these issues developing, we will be able to see what the trends are and be more preventive and ahead of the trends before they cause damage.

An estimated 70% of fraud has an international element: it knows no borders. As part of our effort to counter that, the UK sponsored the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and Interpol global fraud summit in March. That ministerial summit brought together over 1,000 attendees across 115 Governments, over 40 Ministers and senior law enforcement, and over 500 private sector companies, including big tech, with the aim of strengthening international co-operation, raising global standards and agreeing co-ordinated, multi-sector action plans to deal with fraud. We also want to do what we can to try to shut down some of the scam centres that we know are appearing in particular areas of the world; where we can, we will sign memorandums of understanding with countries that may have a particular issue that we see impinging on our citizens.

The international part is extremely important. As the hon. Member for Yeovil mentioned in his speech, working with the telecoms companies and the big tech companies is equally important. I assure him that our new fraud strategy is particularly aimed at being able to ensure that we bring these different strands together and bear down on the current levels of fraud, which are completely unacceptable.

Question put and agreed to.

Agriculture: Government Support

Debate between Adam Dance and Angela Eagle

Wednesday 29th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Entrance into the industry is a really important issue. Often, it is an issue of access to land to farm at all, and I am certainly thinking very carefully about what we might do with respect to that. If the hon. Lady has any insights from her own constituency, I am happy for her to share them with me, and we can see whether we can deal with the issue of how to get younger people into farming and get them some land to farm.

We have allocated a record £11.8 billion to sustainable farming and food production over this Parliament. Overall, farmers and land managers will benefit from an average of £2.3 billion a year through the farming and countryside programme. We are increasing investment in environmental land management schemes, rising towards £2 billion by 2028-29, because profitable farming depends on the fundamentals, which are healthy soils, clean water and resilient ecosystems.

We are also improving how support is delivered. I recognise some of the issues—

[Adam Dance]

On support, will the Minister give way?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

Let me finish my sentence. I recognise some of the issues that have been raised about the uncertainty around the schemes.

[Adam Dance]

Jack is a lad from my constituency with autism, obsessive-compulsive disorder and sensory issues, and he has a great ambition to work on a dairy farm. Will the Minister look into what she and colleagues can do to give support and confidence to farmers so that they can support passionate young people with special educational needs and disabilities, like Jack, into farming?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

It is really important that we try to give a younger generation of people the chances given by access to land so that they can farm. I certainly think that we have not had a look at farming education and the ways into the sector for a very long time. I would certainly like to be able to do that.