Asked by: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government (1) how many, and (2) which, regulatory bodies are responsible for the criminal prosecution of fraud; how many successful prosecutions for fraud have been secured as a result of actions taken by each of these bodies since 2010; and what penalties have been imposed following each of these prosecutions.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
Due to the nature of fraud, it can be committed in a variety of ways against organisations and individuals. As such, we do not hold a record of all regulators that may be involved with the criminal prosecution of fraud. The Government set out its plans for tackling fraud in the joint public and private sector Economic Crime Plan (2019-22), which was published in July 2019. Further information, including a list of organisations involved in the development of it, can be found here: Economic Crime Plan, 2019 to 2022, accessible version - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The number of convictions involving pension scams is not centrally held in the court proceedings database as this specific offence is not separately identified in legislation. Identifying this offence separately would require a manual search of court records, incurring disproportionate costs.
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions, convictions and outcomes for fraud offences, that will include pensions scams, amongst other offences.
The numbers of prosecutions, convictions and outcomes for fraud offences have been provided in the attached table. These figures were taken from the following published data tool:
The Court Proceedings database does not include the responsible regulatory body bringing the prosecution.
Asked by: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) convictions, and (2) criminal penalties, there were for pension scams in each year since 2010.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
Due to the nature of fraud, it can be committed in a variety of ways against organisations and individuals. As such, we do not hold a record of all regulators that may be involved with the criminal prosecution of fraud. The Government set out its plans for tackling fraud in the joint public and private sector Economic Crime Plan (2019-22), which was published in July 2019. Further information, including a list of organisations involved in the development of it, can be found here: Economic Crime Plan, 2019 to 2022, accessible version - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
The number of convictions involving pension scams is not centrally held in the court proceedings database as this specific offence is not separately identified in legislation. Identifying this offence separately would require a manual search of court records, incurring disproportionate costs.
The Ministry of Justice has published information on prosecutions, convictions and outcomes for fraud offences, that will include pensions scams, amongst other offences.
The numbers of prosecutions, convictions and outcomes for fraud offences have been provided in the attached table. These figures were taken from the following published data tool:
The Court Proceedings database does not include the responsible regulatory body bringing the prosecution.
Asked by: Stephen Timms (Labour - East Ham)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what changes HMRC made to the process for registering occupational pension schemes in (a) 2006 and (b) 2014; and what the reasons were for those changes .
Answered by John Glen
HMRC is responsible for registering pension schemes where they wish to benefit from the tax reliefs available to pensions.
As a result of pension tax simplification, pension scheme registration was moved to a new online digital system in 2006.
As part of a wider government response to concerns surrounding pension scams, in 2014 legislation was introduced to enable HMRC to refuse registration where the scheme administrators were not considered to be fit and proper.
Asked by: Lord Sikka (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many (1) convictions have been secured, and (2) penalties awarded, for pension scams for each year since 2010.
Answered by Lord Wolfson of Tredegar - Shadow Attorney General
It has not proved possible to respond to this question in the time available before Dissolution. Ministers will correspond directly with the Member.
Asked by: Christian Wakeford (Labour - Bury South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
What steps she has taken to strengthen protections for pension savers.
Answered by Guy Opperman
The Government is committed to safeguarding pension savings.
Many pension scams are initiated and perpetuated online, and that is why I am meeting with Google on 10 March to explore what action is being taken against online pension fraud
and persuade them to stop fraudsters using their site.
Asked by: Neil Gray (Scottish National Party - Airdrie and Shotts)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will include online activity in the ban on pensions cold calling.
Answered by Guy Opperman
This government is committed to safeguarding consumer savings. DWP, and other departments, have introduced measures that assist all savers to understand their choices and the possible risks of the choices they make, along with legislation to protect those most vulnerable to scams. This includes the ban on cold calling, which was introduced January 2019. Further action is being taken legislatively and operationally.
To help protect people from pension scams, clause 125 in the Pension Schemes Bill is being introduced, following extensive consultation and debate. It will allow government to introduce measures to limit the statutory right to transfer.
The Bill will ensure that a range of consumer protections will apply to all pension savers, regardless of what avenue, such as online or via social media, is used by potential scammers to contact them with regards to their pension savings. The powers in this Bill will enable government in certain circumstances (red flags) to remove the statutory right to transfer. The Government is working cross department and with industry & regulators to determine red flags including the use of online channels to make contact with pension savers.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), plays a key role in protecting the UK from cybercrime and fraud. The NCSC’s Active Cyber Defence (ACD) programme tackles cyber-attacks in an automated and scalable way, to improve national resilience. This includes a takedown service which searches for and identifies malicious websites. Where found, it removes them at source so they cannot cause further harm to the public.
To complement the ACD programme, the NCSC recently launched the Suspicious Email Reporting Service, which allows the public to flag suspicious emails to the NCSC simply by forwarding them to report@phishing.gov.uk. They are then analysed and malicious content is taken down where found.
The Government continues to raise public awareness of scams through ongoing communications directly from DWP and with other organisations. Joint and independent communications from the FCA and tPR spelling out the dangers, what to watch out for and giving clarity to trustees and providers on the boundaries between guidance and advice have been issued since April this year (https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/covid-19-savers-stay-calm-dont-rush-financial-decisions(opens in a new tab)). Prior to Covid-19 the FCA and tPR conducted regular campaigns, through the ScamSmart branding, to raise awareness of pension scams and what to watch out for, these have been deemed very successful, over 222,000 visited the ScamSmart website to find out how to identify a scam scheme as a result of the most recent pre Covid campaign, July – November 2019.
DWP continues to communicate regularly on social media to set out the warning signs of a scam and has made multiple posts referencing Pension Scams and #ScamSmart in total across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in the period March to September 2020.
Asked by: Neil Gray (Scottish National Party - Airdrie and Shotts)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will take steps to ensure that the ban on pensions cold calling includes recipients of calls who have an existing relationship with the scam caller.
Answered by Guy Opperman
This government is committed to safeguarding consumer savings. DWP, and other departments, have introduced measures that assist all savers to understand their choices and the possible risks of the choices they make, along with legislation to protect those most vulnerable to scams. This includes the ban on cold calling, which was introduced January 2019. Further action is being taken legislatively and operationally.
To help protect people from pension scams, clause 125 in the Pension Schemes Bill is being introduced, following extensive consultation and debate. It will allow government to introduce measures to limit the statutory right to transfer.
The Bill will ensure that a range of consumer protections will apply to all pension savers, regardless of what avenue, such as online or via social media, is used by potential scammers to contact them with regards to their pension savings. The powers in this Bill will enable government in certain circumstances (red flags) to remove the statutory right to transfer. The Government is working cross department and with industry & regulators to determine red flags including the use of online channels to make contact with pension savers.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), plays a key role in protecting the UK from cybercrime and fraud. The NCSC’s Active Cyber Defence (ACD) programme tackles cyber-attacks in an automated and scalable way, to improve national resilience. This includes a takedown service which searches for and identifies malicious websites. Where found, it removes them at source so they cannot cause further harm to the public.
To complement the ACD programme, the NCSC recently launched the Suspicious Email Reporting Service, which allows the public to flag suspicious emails to the NCSC simply by forwarding them to report@phishing.gov.uk. They are then analysed and malicious content is taken down where found.
The Government continues to raise public awareness of scams through ongoing communications directly from DWP and with other organisations. Joint and independent communications from the FCA and tPR spelling out the dangers, what to watch out for and giving clarity to trustees and providers on the boundaries between guidance and advice have been issued since April this year (https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/covid-19-savers-stay-calm-dont-rush-financial-decisions(opens in a new tab)). Prior to Covid-19 the FCA and tPR conducted regular campaigns, through the ScamSmart branding, to raise awareness of pension scams and what to watch out for, these have been deemed very successful, over 222,000 visited the ScamSmart website to find out how to identify a scam scheme as a result of the most recent pre Covid campaign, July – November 2019.
DWP continues to communicate regularly on social media to set out the warning signs of a scam and has made multiple posts referencing Pension Scams and #ScamSmart in total across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in the period March to September 2020.
Asked by: Neil Gray (Scottish National Party - Airdrie and Shotts)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions he has had with technology companies and platforms on free pension reviews being offered by people seeking to commit fraud via social media to circumvent the pensions cold calling ban.
Answered by Guy Opperman
This government is committed to safeguarding consumer savings. DWP, and other departments, have introduced measures that assist all savers to understand their choices and the possible risks of the choices they make, along with legislation to protect those most vulnerable to scams. This includes the ban on cold calling, which was introduced January 2019. Further action is being taken legislatively and operationally.
To help protect people from pension scams, clause 125 in the Pension Schemes Bill is being introduced, following extensive consultation and debate. It will allow government to introduce measures to limit the statutory right to transfer.
The Bill will ensure that a range of consumer protections will apply to all pension savers, regardless of what avenue, such as online or via social media, is used by potential scammers to contact them with regards to their pension savings. The powers in this Bill will enable government in certain circumstances (red flags) to remove the statutory right to transfer. The Government is working cross department and with industry & regulators to determine red flags including the use of online channels to make contact with pension savers.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), plays a key role in protecting the UK from cybercrime and fraud. The NCSC’s Active Cyber Defence (ACD) programme tackles cyber-attacks in an automated and scalable way, to improve national resilience. This includes a takedown service which searches for and identifies malicious websites. Where found, it removes them at source so they cannot cause further harm to the public.
To complement the ACD programme, the NCSC recently launched the Suspicious Email Reporting Service, which allows the public to flag suspicious emails to the NCSC simply by forwarding them to report@phishing.gov.uk. They are then analysed and malicious content is taken down where found.
The Government continues to raise public awareness of scams through ongoing communications directly from DWP and with other organisations. Joint and independent communications from the FCA and tPR spelling out the dangers, what to watch out for and giving clarity to trustees and providers on the boundaries between guidance and advice have been issued since April this year (https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/covid-19-savers-stay-calm-dont-rush-financial-decisions(opens in a new tab)). Prior to Covid-19 the FCA and tPR conducted regular campaigns, through the ScamSmart branding, to raise awareness of pension scams and what to watch out for, these have been deemed very successful, over 222,000 visited the ScamSmart website to find out how to identify a scam scheme as a result of the most recent pre Covid campaign, July – November 2019.
DWP continues to communicate regularly on social media to set out the warning signs of a scam and has made multiple posts referencing Pension Scams and #ScamSmart in total across Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn in the period March to September 2020.
Asked by: Darren Jones (Labour - Bristol North West)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps he is taking to protect vulnerable people from fraudulent cold calling.
Answered by John Whittingdale
Fraudulent calls can have significant and devastating impacts on people’s lives, particularly the most vulnerable in society. As well as being a nuisance, cold calling is the most common method used to initiate fraud, especially relating to pensions. That’s why the government has taken action to ban pension cold calling.
HM Treasury has introduced a ban on pension cold calling in order to reduce the chance of individual’s being enticed into fraudulent schemes.
Further to this, Home Office has collaborated with UK Finance to run the Take Five fraud awareness campaign. The campaign is designed to equip the public to challenge fraudulent approaches with confidence – be they face-to-face, on the telephone or online.
The Government continues to work on practical solutions to address nuisance and scam calls. DCMS have provided over £1 million in the last 3 years to the National Trading Standards for distribution of call blocking devices to vulnerable people. This funding helped to protect some of the most vulnerable in society from nuisance calls and scams, including those originating from overseas.
Asked by: Neil Gray (Scottish National Party - Airdrie and Shotts)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, how many tax rule breaches resulting from pension scams have been identified by HMRC in each of the last five years.
Answered by John Glen
HMRC deals with tackling tax avoidance, evasion and other forms of non-compliance.
HMRC is responsible for pension tax relief but not for the regulation of pension schemes. Regulation is the responsibility of the Pensions Regulator and the Financial Conduct Authority.
Since 2015 individuals over 55 have been able to legally withdraw amounts from their pension pots, pay tax on the amounts withdrawn and invest the amounts however they wish. However, as the amounts withdrawn and the investment occurs outside of the pensions tax wrapper, this does not give rise to tax breaches, provided the relevant tax charges are paid.
Pension investment frauds are arguably a subset of investment frauds. Serious or complex fraud is a criminal offence and is investigated by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), also has as one of its statutory objectives the reduction of financial crime, which includes fraud.
HMRC empathises with anyone who believes that they may have been misled about their pension investments. We will continue working closely with the Pensions Regulator and Financial Conduct Authority to tackle pension avoidance schemes.