Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Home Office

Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts
Monday 22nd May 2023

(1 year, 6 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Robert Jenrick Portrait Robert Jenrick
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The Bill is based on the simple principle that we want to break the people smugglers’ and human traffickers’ business model. By supporting the Bill—I know the hon. Lady opposes it—we will do that. We will stop people making these dangerous, unnecessary crossings and there will be fewer cases such as those that she raises. But I go back to the point that I made to her colleague, the hon. Member for Midlothian (Owen Thompson). If the SNP feels so strongly about this issue, why does it do so little to support asylum seekers in Scotland? Currently, there are 11 contingency hotels in the whole of Scotland, housing 600 migrants. That is 1% of all the asylum seekers in the country. She never matches her words with deeds.

Nigel Mills Portrait Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
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5. What steps her Department is taking to tackle fraud.

Gagan Mohindra Portrait Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
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8. What steps her Department is taking to tackle fraud.

Tom Tugendhat Portrait The Minister for Security (Tom Tugendhat)
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We recently launched our strategy to tackle fraud, alongside measures in the Online Safety Bill that will require companies to prevent fraud and measures in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill to hold companies to account for fraud committed by their employees. We are also working with tech companies to agree other measures and improving the support we give to victims.

Nigel Mills Portrait Nigel Mills
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We know that 80% of fraud starts online, and 18% comes from the tech companies that the Minister talked about, yet they do not contribute anything to reimbursing the victims of fraud, despite effectively profiting from causing it. Is it not time that we considered asking them to contribute towards reimbursing some of the losses that they are introducing into the system?

Tom Tugendhat Portrait Tom Tugendhat
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My hon. Friend is raising questions that we have looked at closely in the fraud strategy, and he is absolutely right to highlight the disparity between those who are causing and those who are paying. This is a conversation that we have been having, and I look forward to identifying some areas soon for further discussion. Action Fraud has not always helped as well as it might, which is why we are looking at making the system more efficient.