Financial Fraud and Economic Crime

Paul Holmes Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, and to be able to respond to this debate on behalf of the Opposition as a newly appointed shadow Home Office Minister, as of this morning.

I congratulate the hon. Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) on securing this debate and thank him for giving us the chance to discuss the serious issues that he outlined. Also, may I put on the record my commiserations to the constituent he mentioned, whom he saw at his surgery last week, for the serious issues that she has faced? I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for as usual showing his knowledge of yet another subject.

Many of us will have been, or know someone who has been, a victim of financial fraud. The hon. Member for Southend West and Leigh (David Burton-Sampson) outlined the various possible targets, from the pensioner who is tricked into giving away their savings by a rogue cold call, to an unsuspecting parent receiving a scam text purportedly from their child asking for money. All ages and sections of society are at risk.

As these criminal schemes become more sophisticated, nobody is immune. We have seen that bank accounts can be emptied in minutes and life savings lost. In 2021, victims reported losing £2.35 billion to fraudsters and scammers. We also know from statistics that it is elderly and vulnerable people who are most susceptible to scams and fraud. To the vile criminals who target them, they are seen as a means to enrichment and to profit from their misery. It is our duty to protect them.

In an astonishing statistic, Home Office figures indicate that the social and economic cost to the UK from economic crime is £8.4 billion a year. Those costs directly impact the lives and livelihoods of millions of citizens, and further exacerbate social and economic pressures. I look forward to hearing reassurances from the Minister, whom I welcome to his role, on how he will continue to make the progress delivered by the previous Government.

We also know, as the hon. Member for York Outer mentioned, that it is not just individuals who are targeted. In a time of increasing global instability, adversaries are constantly probing for weaknesses in our digital financial infrastructure, from cyber-attacks aimed at crippling software, to ransomware attempts to extort money. Our systems are constantly having to update and evolve to keep ahead in a technological arms race. I was interested to hear recommendation 1 in the hon. Gentleman’s speech. I would press the Minister to look seriously at that proposal, which would get support from the Opposition, as he outlines his proposals.

The previous Government showed leadership in this area. They introduced a reporting mechanism that was bolstered by replacing Action Fraud with a state-of-the-art system for victims to report fraud, while a new national fraud squad, with more than 400 new specialist investigators, made fraud a priority for the police. Will the Minister look seriously at the proposal outlined by the hon. Member for York Outer for a new national fraud centre? That is an interesting proposal and I would like to know whether the Government would look at that, as well as at an anti-fraud tsar who would be a champion in this place, to whom hon. Members can go. I know the Minister is a champion and has many responsibilities. We could never go without another champion in this Parliament.

If we take a new approach, we can make a great deal of progress on the 13% reduction in fraud that we saw under the previous Government; indeed we can go further. The need to tackle this growing threat is clear. The economic crime plan, brought forward by the previous Government, for the first time introduced a more effective and joint way of working across various organisations, including law enforcement, supervisory agencies and the private sector, through the landmark Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. Stronger tools were put in place to help us fight economic crime. We are all alive to the threats affecting our national security, with our economy being a prime target for rogue forces. The strengthening of our defences by widening our ability to freeze assets and to prevent abuses of our open economy proved to be key after Russia invaded Ukraine, and we must continue to strengthen our economic defence in the wake of rogue foreign entities.

Finally, we have seen the new Government make lofty statements about their desire to get tough on fraud, with a new expanded fraud strategy, which I welcome. Given recent policy decisions by the Government, going against promises and commitments in other areas made during the general election, I hope that this is not an area where we will let vulnerable people down. I hope that the Government deliver on those promises. We all agree on the need to tackle this issue. It is to be hoped that this Government are as committed and passionate as the previous one about dealing with this issue, so that we can make progress together. The Minister will have the Opposition’s support in tackling this issue.