Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the cost of financial scams to the UK economy.

The Office for National Statistics publishes estimates on the volume of fraud against adult individuals in England and Wales in the Crime Survey for England and Wales quarterly releases.^[1]

The ONS estimated that in the year ending June 2020 there were approximately 4.3 m fraud offences against adults in England Wales.

The ONS also publishes, as part of its data on crime, the total number of fraud offences that are referred to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) by industry bodies (UK finance and CIFAS) or recorded by Action Fraud each year. In the year ending June 2020, 733,967 cases were referred to the NFIB or recorded by Action Fraud. The ONS also provide a breakdown of this data by fraud type. For example, there were 415,274 cases of banking and credit industry fraud reported and 14,616 cases of financial investment fraud.^[2]

The Home Office has estimated that the total cost of fraud to individuals in England and Wales in 2015/2016 was £4.7bn^[3]. They also estimated that the economic cost of organised fraud against businesses and the public sector in the UK was £5.9bn.^[4]

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2020

[2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesappendixtables

[3] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/732110/the-economic-and-social-costs-of-crime-horr99.pdf

[4] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/782656/understanding-organised-crime-mar16-horr103-2nd.pdf