Social Media: Scam Adverts and Fraudulent Content

Lord Bailey of Paddington Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. He is absolutely right that the banks are effectively subsidising fraud results and are leading to the repayment of an amount of the fraud that is taking place. He is also right that a large portion of that fraud, which is around 44% of all crime, goes through telecommunication companies. We recently established a brand new fraud charter with telecom companies, which I believe will reduce fraud via telephone communication significantly over the next 12 months. In the fraud strategy we will discuss the potential for reducing fraud through telecommunications platforms and through platforms such as Meta/Facebook and others, which are a significant gateway to fraud. The noble Lord is absolutely right, but I will have to reflect on those matters as part of the forthcoming fraud strategy.

[Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us what work the Government are doing around protecting young people in particular? I have been contacted by a number of student-age young people who have found themselves, through social media, caught up in money laundering. They are sent a message asking to borrow their bank account and the money is exchanged equitably, as far as they are concerned, but it is then investigated by the bank and found out to be money laundering—an offence they can never remove from their history. Can the Government do a piece of work around protecting young people from money laundering?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. The Government have accepted that there is a challenge in that area. There are resources going into educational opportunities, particularly targeted at university students, to help them avoid money laundering. Some months ago I visited a scheme—as it happens, in my home area of north Wales—where educational opportunities were being undertaken by regional organised crime agencies to meet students to explain how money laundering works and how they can become victims of money laundering without realising they are involved in it. There is a great educational opportunity and we are trying to work through that, but self-evidently I will continue to look at what more can be done.