Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on the potential merits of expanding the scope of the proposed online safety Bill to tackle online scams and fraud.

The Online Safety Bill was developed jointly by DCMS and the Home Office, involving close cooperation at Ministerial and official level.

The government is deeply concerned about the growth and scale of online fraud. The Online Safety Bill, published on the 12th May, will therefore require companies in scope of regulation to take action to tackle fraud, where it is facilitated through user-generated content (for example by social media posts) or via search results. We expect the regulatory framework to have a particular impact on specific types of fraud, such as romance scams, which are estimated to cost over £60 million a year and cause significant psychological harm to victims.