Scam Mailing

Debate between Heather Wheeler and Jo Swinson

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jo Swinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his suggestion. I will mention Royal Mail’s response and what we could do to enhance that.

Volume is just one issue that we face. It is not easy to tell which letters are scam mail, because they can arrive in plain envelopes. Indeed, the people designing scams try to stay one step ahead of any regime.

[Heather Wheeler]

With 12 minutes to go, I am not going to fall out with the hon. Lady. Unfortunately, given protocol, I did not wave around the envelopes, but they really are obvious.

[Jo Swinson]

I take the hon. Lady’s point that some may be obvious. I do not think that all of them are. We are talking about 3.2 million victims of scams a year, so there will be a wide range.

If we begin to give people licence to intercept mail, that creates a fundamental change in the postal workers’ role. There is a related issue—a genuine operational issue—about feasibility and the resource required. The postal service is universal and is welcomed and valued. We need to think about the resource impact, given the 60 million items of mail a day.

There are, however, things that Royal Mail can do, given the communication channel in which it operates. Hon. Members have mentioned Royal Mail employees feeling frustrated because they want to ensure that they can help. That is often because the local posties will have a pleasant chat and pass the time of day with people, or say hello to them, in particular someone who is housebound or in during the day. They are frequently the people who notice if someone has had a fall or been ill, because the mail is piling up at the door, and many of them take a real interest as upstanding members of the community. There is no reason why they should not be part of the solution, and that is why there is specific awareness among postal workers of such issues—general awareness in the population is vital, but such front-line workers have particular access to individuals, where things are happening.

Such awareness has already started to develop. The hon. Member for Edinburgh South mentioned the lack of funds for advertising campaigns, which is right, but there are other ways of communicating and getting information out there. For example, Royal Mail has an employee magazine, in which the Think Jessica campaign has been publicised, including contact details and its aims. If postal workers are concerned about someone on their regular round, they have a way of being able to pass on those complaints to Action Fraud to ensure that the police and the authorities can deal with the issues. That is important.

At the other end—not the mail delivery end, but at the beginning, trying to stop things before they get into the postal system—Royal Mail is working alongside the police and the UK Border Agency to identify some of the scam mailing houses. Royal Mail has the ability to cancel contracts, and it has done so with particular bulk mailing houses if they are found to have been used to facilitate scams. Such action in the early stages is important, as is the role of that trusted individual with access as a conduit for good advice.

One idea was that postal workers could have an information leaflet to give out, which would be less intrusive than a power to open mail—I have outlined some of the problems with that proposal. Royal Mail does not leaflet at the moment, but I am happy to go away and take up the idea with Royal Mail, to see if it is feasible and useful. In the scenarios outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire—I can imagine the brandishing of the envelopes that were pretty obvious—a leaflet could provide targeted and useful information without being intrusive or invading privacy. With awareness and enforcement, we can ensure that people understand the risks and can clamp down hard on the people who are abusing the system and conning innocent people out of money, causing a great deal of distress. That is vital.

I accept that my response is slightly disappointing for my hon. Friend, because I cannot say that the Government will support the proposed legislative change. I can, however, say that the Government are sympathetic to the problem she has rightly outlined. The victims of such scams are people who should not be conned out of their money. The practice is unacceptable and, to use a word used earlier, cruel. I disagree that we should deal with it by putting the onus on Royal Mail front-line staff and giving them an extra responsibility to identify things, then intercept and open the mail. Such an approach would be heavy-handed and there would be a raft of unintended consequences.

Another general principle is that legislation is a last resort. Some good ideas have been proposed in the debate today, and we can take those forward to see whether they can have a further impact. Indeed, excellent work is already going on, started through Scambusters under the previous Government, continued under this Government, to ensure awareness and that proper enforcement is followed up. Trading standards, Citizens Advice, individual MPs, UKBA and the police all have an important role to play in raising awareness, in improving enforcement and in putting a stop to this unacceptable practice.