Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps her department is taking to ensure telecommunications providers take responsibility for preventing scam calling.

Tackling fraud is a priority for this Government. We are working closely with industry, and on 5 November 2025 published the second Telecommunications Fraud Sector Charter. This includes actions to help strengthen trust in voice communications particularly the spoofing of UK numbers and by improving security, traceability and reliability of calls.

On 9 March, the Home Office published its new Fraud Strategy which sets out how the Government will work with all partners, including law enforcement and industry, to make the UK a much harder place for criminals to operate. As part of the Strategy, we are establishing a new Online Crime Centre. From April 2026 the police, GCHQ, banks, telecommunications and tech firms will work in one place to drive the response to online fraud.

Government also works closely with Ofcom, the independent regulator, who have a duty to protect consumers and to ensure that UK numbers are not misused. Ofcom has made several changes in recent years to help reduce scams, including since January 2025 Ofcom has required operators to block scam calls from abroad which present as a UK numbers.