Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Collins Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

6. What recent assessment she has made of trends in the incidence of fraud.

[Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)]

10. What steps she is taking to help tackle fraud.

[Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick) (Lab)]

21. What steps her Department is taking to help protect consumers against fraud.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Jarvis]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman takes these matters seriously, but I gently remind the House that under the last Government, Lord Agnew, then Minister with responsibility for countering fraud, literally resigned at the Dispatch Box. Among other things, he accused the Treasury of having “little interest” in the consequences of fraud for our society. It is precisely because of the important points that the right hon. Gentleman raises that a national fraud squad of some 400 new specialist investigators is being recruited. That will be led by the National Crime Agency’s national economic crime centre, working closely with the City of London police. We will do all we can to protect the public from fraud.

[Victoria Collins]

A study last year showed that more than two in five people over 50 had been scammed in the last five years, losing an average of £2,000 in each scam. In half of those cases, the money was never recovered—and that is just at the small end of the scale. Even in the past two weeks, as a result of developments in artificial intelligence, there have been exponential improvements to scams, which are more convincing and realistic than ever before. What is the Home Office doing to protect people, especially the more vulnerable, by informing them about AI scams?

[Dan Jarvis]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise concerns; the numbers that she references are deeply concerning. Combating fraud and beating scammers requires raising public awareness, and I am grateful for the work that she has done on this. I can tell her that the Home Office is working closely with the banking, telecoms, digital and tech sectors to improve systems and share data faster with law enforcement. Over 60 stakeholders from across industry are involved in the development of our new fraud strategy. Public communications, targeted support for the most vulnerable and AI are key parts of our strategy.