Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to tackle the increase in the number of sophisticated scam text messages being received and resultant financial losses by the victims of those scams.

Fraudsters will use any means they can, including through highly deceptive and sophisticated techniques such as text messaging scams, to trick people into handing over their hard-earned money.

This Government is committed to protecting people from all types of fraud and pursuing those who perpetuate these crimes wherever possible. It is for this reason as part of the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed a further £63m to the Home Office to tackle economic crime, including fraud. In May, we published a Statement of Progress on the Economic Crime Plan which committed to developing a comprehensive Fraud Action Plan.

We are working closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) and the telecommunication industry to tackle fraud carried out through texts and calls and close those vulnerabilities criminals too easily exploit. We are also engaging with the banking sector to ensure victims are not left out of pocket through no fault of their own. Certain banks are subject to the Contingent Reimbursement Model; a voluntary code signed up to by some banks, which commit them to reimbursing victims of fraud. More information on this can be found here:

www.lendingstandardsboard.org.uk/contingent-reimbursement-model-code/.

We continue to encourage the public to forward suspicious text messages to 7726 (which is free of charge) and anyone who has been a targeted by fraud to report it. Action Fraud is the national reporting service for all victims of fraud and cybercrime and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website:

http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud.

All of this information is being used by the City of London Police, the National Cyber Security Centre, and the National Crime Agency to identify, disrupt and stop fraudsters.