Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to help support police forces to tackle rising levels of online fraud and scams.

The Government, working with City of London Police, has recently replaced Action Fraud with a new and improved national police reporting service for fraud and cybercrime. The new service (Report Fraud) went live on 4 December. Report Fraud will provide better intelligence to support police and other partners with responding to online fraud and scams.

In addition, the Government has completed recruitment of the National Fraud Squad (NFS) of specialist posts, led by the NCA and City of London Police. The NFS will take a proactive, intelligence-led approach to identifying and disrupting the most serious fraudsters operating in the online space and targeting the UK public.

The Home Office has also undertaken a comprehensive review of the fraud training and skills landscape - we will implement the recommendations from this to ensure officers have the right skillset to respond to online fraud and scams.

More broadly, under the Online Safety Act, companies in scope must now tackle fraudulent content at source, or face the possibility of significant fines from the regulator.

The Government will set out a comprehensive Fraud Strategy early in the New Year. It will include measures to both protect consumers and disrupt criminal networks and ensure that the UK remains the most difficult environment possible for fraudsters to operate in.