International Financial Fraud

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord—my noble friend rather, although maybe not based on that question—has significant expertise in this area. While I appreciate his concern, this is of course something that the Government take very seriously, which is one reason why we have been elected to chair the FATF presidency for the next two years. It is also why we are taking action on anti-money laundering and in the fraud space. We are very aware that 47% of all crime in England and Wales is through fraud and we are working to protect the victims of this crime.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, fighting financial fraud is very important, but it imposes huge costs on honest and reputable businesses without always catching the criminals. How do the Government gauge whether regulations and their enforcement, which she described so graphically, are proportionate?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I occasionally agree with the noble Baroness, and in this instance, I find that I do. One of the issues here, though, is the wider cost of fraud to UK plc: it is currently £14 billion a year. While I appreciate the concern about the impact on individual companies, the reality is that there were 6 million attempted frauds in the UK last year, 80% of them were online and 70% had an international dimension. I appreciate the concern, and there is a reason we have been very targeted in the economic crime levy about who is paying for it, but there is a genuine issue here that is undermining us in every corner of the economy.