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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to stop older people from being targeted by scam telephone calls.

The Government recognises that nuisance and scam calls can be particularly stressful and damaging for the most vulnerable in society. The Government has taken a range of actions to reduce the number of nuisance calls including banning cold calls from pension providers unless the consumer has explicitly agreed to be contacted. We have been working with National Trading Standards to supply call blocking devices to some of the most vulnerable in society.

The Government has been running the Take Five fraud awareness campaign designed to urge the public and businesses to take time to consider whether a situation they find themselves in is genuine. The campaign equips the public to more confidently challenge fraudulent approaches – be they face-to-face, on the telephone or online. Specific advice on phone scams and phishing can be found at www.takefive-stopfraud.org.uk.

With regards to fraud more generally, the government has recently launched a gov.uk page that contains easy-to-follow steps to spot potential frauds and to avoid them. It also signposts advice and support to those who may unfortunately have fallen victim. This page can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-fraud-and-cyber-crime