That this House has considered the potential merits of increasing fraud protections and the Fraud Strategy 2026 to 2029.
It is a pleasure to lead this debate with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris, and I thank the Minister for being here.
Fraud has been spreading like the plague for years, infecting almost every aspect of daily life: online, on the phone, at work or out and about. People do not know who or what to trust. Fraud costs the UK economy more than £1 billion a year, yet sentencing is well below its 2010 level. In 2025, British consumers lost £1.2 billion to fraud—a four-year high.
What does that rise mean? My constituent’s small business in Ilton was scammed out of more than £3,000worth of orders through a credit card scam, wiping out their business. Another constituent’s elderly mother had debts run up by an estranged relative, who used her details to the extent that bailiffs came round. Another constituent was tricked into investing hundreds of thousands of pounds into a building company that then shut down. Lots of constituents have been defrauded out of thousands of pounds by tradespeople for half-done work or work that never actually happened.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. My constituents have similar concerns about the impact of fraud, especially on vulnerable people. I have spoken to the noble Lord Hanson, who has been developing the strategy, to outline those concerns. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the direction in the new UK fraud strategy, the expansion of the “Stop! Think Fraud” campaign and the promotion of proactive policing are good things that should be welcomed?
They are good things and I will come on to them later, but we do need more support for vulnerable adults and young people—something I will also come on to.
We need to get a balance. I spoke to the hon. Gentleman beforehand, and we must be incredibly careful not to let the state overreach in the process. Does he agree that a law-abiding citizen should be able to walk into their local bank and spend, withdraw or transfer their own hard-earned money without being treated like a criminal suspect? We must ensure that the fraud strategy does not become a nanny-state charter that forces ordinary people to prove to a bank clerk why they want to spend their own money.
I agree with some of what the hon. Gentleman said, and I will come on to talk about why banks should have more face-to-face contact with people instead of sending them online.
It is even simple, little things. One constituent was scammed into paying a clean air zone charge, which does not exist, because it popped up on a sponsored page on Google. Another agreed to send Amazon vouchers to their elderly mother, but they actually sent them to a scammer.
In April, in response to this problem, the Government came forward with the 2026 to 2029 fraud strategy. They have committed £250 million to the plan over the next three years. There is a lot to welcome in the strategy, particularly the establishment of the fraud victims charter and the new Report Fraud scheme to replace Action Fraud, which was totally useless.
I will make my intervention very quick, Mrs Harris. Unfortunately, Police Scotland and the Scottish Government have not opted to join the Report Fraud scheme. That means that my constituents do not benefit from it. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that they should make progress in joining it?
I totally agree that Scotland should join, because we should work together against fraudsters, not in isolation or silos.
Short of catching the fraudsters themselves, my constituents who were defrauded provided every scrap of evidence that they or their businesses could, but they were all told by Action Fraud that there was no line of inquiry. I welcome the strong start on international co-operation and the introduction of an online crime centre, a new abuse taskforce and more data-driven policing. If properly supported, that work could help us to take a proactive approach to addressing the types of fraud that my constituents were victims of. Will the Minister look into whether the cases that Action Fraud failed to follow up can be reopened with those new systems in place? Lots of my constituents are still out of pocket.
Despite that, there are still some real challenges with the strategy. The big question is whether, given the scale of the problem, £250 million is enough. Will we be able to afford the technology and the workforce to keep up with fraudsters? Is the strategy fully costed, or will we find ourselves in a situation like that of the defence investment plan, for which the money just is not enough? I know for a fact that we do not have enough police officers to do outreach to all the people vulnerable to fraud in Yeovil and south Somerset. Given that we are losing billions to fraud, surely it would be a smart move to invest a bit more in fighting it. The expansion of awareness campaigns such as “Stop! Think Fraud” is great, but what are the challenges to that? How will current approaches be improved to reach more people and be more effective, given that fraud cases are still on the rise?
It is a great pleasure to be in this Chamber with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) on securing the debate. I also thank him for how he has set out some of the very difficult problems that all our constituents have faced as technology has provided the wherewithal to industrialise frauds and scams, often from abroad.
There is now no way to get a handle on what they are doing without involving ourselves in international co-operation. As technologies advance, the threat of these kinds of activities evolves, and we have to do what we can to try to keep pace with them and hopefully get ahead, so that we can do some prevention rather than trying to pick up the pieces after terrible things have happened.
At this juncture, I express my empathy and sympathy with the hon. Member’s constituents, some of whom he has mentioned today, including Christopher, who was the subject of a romance fraud, and Jason, who was subjected to fraudulent behaviour and the temptation of wealth creation that was not really there.
One thing that has struck me very strongly since I took up this post three weeks ago, and from my own constituency caseload over many years, is how invidious and difficult it is for the victims of these kinds of behaviours to admit that they have fallen into a trap, because many of them feel a bit silly and embarrassed and do not know where to turn to try to get redress. The way that redress has worked in this country in the past has not kept pace with the industrialisation of fraud, its international aspect and its sophistication. It has been difficult, therefore, as the hon. Member for Yeovil recounted, for systems to keep up.
I thank the Minister for her answers. Does she agree that we should fully regulate the property training industry? That is a huge issue across the whole country and affects lots of people. As the Minister rightly said a second ago, people do not come forward because they are embarrassed, which is also why, unfortunately, they take their own lives.
We need to look at where the issues are, where the loopholes are and where people are being exploited. We need to see what we can do, both as law enforcers and as regulators, to close those loopholes. I am not going to say yes immediately to the hon. Gentleman’s question, not least because it is not directly in my bivouac, but he can rest assured that we will look at the trends and see how we can harden the target, if I might put it that way. A whole range of individuals can be scammed and fall for very sophisticated frauds without realising—and by the time they do realise, it is too late.
Obviously the private sector, specifically the banking sector, has an important part to play with the warnings that it puts on its electronic banking systems. We need to do an enormous amount of co-operative work in all this, to ensure that our online crime centre can pick up and collaborate with all parts of the system that is there to try to protect people. As I said earlier, “Stop! Think Fraud” is an important part of that. If something looks too good to be true online, it almost certainly is. We have to get that education out there, be it through influencers or other types of people, to the people who are potential victims in this area.
On banking, one of the biggest issues for Christopher was that his carer was turned away by Lloyds many times and sent online. We often see that issue because banks are shutting and we have banking hubs. Does the Minister agree that the banks should work more with people with neurodiversity and disabilities and work more to see those people face to face? There should also be more support in our banking hubs.
The banking hubs are at an early stage of their development. They are a good development. At the moment, they are less sophisticated in the services that they can offer. We have to work with banks, which are—because most of their customers wish it—going online and leaving the high street. That does leave in a more vulnerable situation people who perhaps are more vulnerable to being scammed online. In our work with the banks, we have to try to make the case that they need to have special relationships and ways of dealing with those who are neurodiverse or who may be easier, in some ways, to fool. In my experience, almost anyone can become a victim of this kind of fraud if they get caught at a vulnerable moment or when they are upset about something, so we have to deal with education in a much more holistic way, rather than just categorising people. But I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point.
Using data from Report Fraud, we are improving our ability to identify emerging fraud trends and local fraud hotspots, which enables us to work with police forces and community partners to deliver targeted interventions where we see they are needed most. We are just beginning to get to the stage at which we can start spotting these kinds of trends and trying to prevent them, rather than trying to pick up the pieces after a fraud has happened.
It is equally important to co-ordinate the fraud protect networks, for which City of London police has responsibility. Bringing together local, regional and national law enforcement, the network helps to reduce the threat of fraud and repeat victimisation through consistent prevention messaging, practical safeguarding advice and targeted public engagement. I think that as we see more of these issues developing, we will be able to see what the trends are and be more preventive and ahead of the trends before they cause damage.
Another glaring issue is that the strategy provides no changes to the current system of largely voluntary charters and Ofcom oversight of social media and tech platforms to prevent fraud. Two thirds of authorised UK financial fraud last year happened on social media. In fact, through things like paid advertising, these companies could be making a profit from fraud on their platforms. It is not good enough, so why are the Government and Ofcom not doing more?
The Online Safety Act 2023 gives us tools to fine social media companies for not reducing harm, but will they be properly used? Will the Minister commit to push Ofcom to prioritise fraud enforcement? Will the Government give Ofcom a hard deadline to implement the fraud advertising codes of practice, which would set out rules for ads online?
We could talk for hours and hours about the different types of protection that need to be in place, but sadly for me—and luckily for everyone else—we do not have hours, so I will focus on the cases of two constituents and the questions about safeguarding that they raise.
Christopher lives with developmental language disorder and struggles to produce or retain complex information. He is very agreeable and is known to give consent even if he does not really understand, which makes him incredibly vulnerable. He was targeted by romance fraudsters, who misled him, largely online, into believing that he was in a romantic relationship with one of their gang. He was convinced to travel to Hungary to buy a property for them to live in. He invested £70,000 in a property that was never transferred to him. After that, he was persuaded to purchase a rundown property in Yeovil and was misled into joining a property scheme that he could not afford. He ended up taking on loans to manage his debt. My team and I managed to get him the £70,000 back from Lloyds after his therapist reached out to us, but that case raises serious questions about how effective protections are for the most vulnerable people. About 7% of the population have DLD, and many more have other forms of learning difficulties, which can make them just as vulnerable, so we are not talking about a small number of people.
Banks’ fraud protection systems rely on automated texts or AI, which the fraud strategy continues to support as a key safeguard, but that is not good enough for someone with communication challenges or learning difficulties. Christopher’s therapist faced endless barriers in trying to get in contact with Lloyds; they were turned away from the branches and told to go online.
We need clarity from the Minister about how the Government will work with the banks to ensure that their safeguards are accessible for people with neurodiversity and disabilities. Will the fraud victims charter establish a right for vulnerable people to access in-person specialised support in bank branches or banking hubs? We also need clear routes for therapists and support providers to flag concerns to financial services and the police. Christopher should not have been able to take out those loans without it being flagged.
The second case that I want to raise is that of Jason, a veteran who served in the Navy. He has come up from Somerset to sit in the Public Gallery today—welcome, Jason. Jason was a victim of wealth creation and property investment schemes run by trainers who styled themselves as social media influencers and targeted veterans and military personnel. These influencers promote themselves and their lifestyle online. They then go to veterans such as Jason, bigging up their military background to build trust. The combination of slick social media, a background that people think they can trust and the promise of training courses that offer financial freedom can be pretty convincing. That is especially true when we consider that far too many of our veterans are facing hardship that, according to Trussell, means that they are twice as likely to run out of food than those who have not served.
In reality, the training courses do not deliver the skills and high-figure salaries promised. Instead, people get basic technology and mindset training. The people running these schemes know that what they offer is absolutely rubbish, but they will convince people to invest in more sessions and to recruit others until they are trapped. Jason ended up spending over £20,000 on training. It got so bad that he even considered taking his own life. Thankfully, Jason is with us and has turned things around. He is now working a fantastic job and has completed an Ironman to raise awareness and money for his community. Sadly, others felt they could not find a way out, like Danny Butcher, who took his own life and in whose name a foundation has been set up, of which Jason is a trustee.
The fraud strategy does not give us much on how to deal with cases like that, where people are clearly being taken advantage of and misled, but where proving fraud is a challenge. I hope the Minister will commit to looking into how measures in the strategy can be used to investigate these types of practices. What we urgently need is proper protections and warnings on social media about the risks posed by this industry. We already have warnings in place for gambling and social media. We even provide warning labels for public service broadcasts. Why can we not do that for wealth creation influencers?
Jason and other veterans have been fighting for the Financial Conduct Authority to fully regulate the property training industry across the UK. Jason is not the only one, and I have heard from many people who have been drawn into this. The Government also need to investigate the practices and impact of the broader influencer wealth creation industry. It is not just veterans, and if we do nothing, more and more vulnerable people will be ripped off.
It is no overstatement to say that we are fighting a war with fraudsters. For far too long they have been one step ahead. I hope that the Minister will be able to address the issues we have raised today and will commit to setting up a meeting with me and her ministerial colleagues, so that we can talk in more detail about these cases. This issue is not going away, and I will not either until I have seen stronger protections put in place.
People feel not only embarrassed, worried and a bit shameful that they have fallen into those traps, according to my constituency caseload, but they do not find it easy to get redress. I congratulate the hon. Member on his constituency work, and the way he has used the systems that we are putting in place to ensure that the money can be refunded in many cases, though obviously not all.
My esteemed colleague Lord Hanson leads on this area of work. Despite all the innovations in our constitution since I have been in this House, we do not allow Lords to speak in Commons debates, thank goodness. I am here, however, and more than happy to talk to Lord Hanson about some of these issues.
Before I come to the points raised, I want to make some simple but important ones of my own. Fraud is high volume and high harm, for the reasons the hon. Member for Yeovil outlined. Hon. Members will know that is true from their experience in advice surgeries. It deprives law-abiding people of their hard-earned money; it hits businesses with sometimes crippling losses; it destroys lives and livelihoods; it destroys confidence and mental health; it drains our economy; and it weakens our resilience and undermines confidence in the rule of law.
This problem is directly linked to my work as Security Minister, because it helps to fuel some of the most serious threats we face as a country, as well as causing the human harm we have heard of today. Our response has to match the scale and impact of the threat. I believe the Government have acted with clarity and ambition, with the new fraud strategy published in March, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned. I thank him for acknowledging that he was happy to see elements of that, such as crucial international action and the replacement of Action Fraud—it was so difficult to see any action coming from it that it would have been better named “Inaction Fraud”. Thankfully, that has been replaced.
As the strategy is put into effect, it will include Report Fraud, victim-support schemes and charters on advertising. In its broadest sense, the strategy brings together all parts of the system, including Government, law enforcement, industry and civil society, and goes further and faster in our fight to disrupt fraudsters and protect the public. The strategy is built on clear principles: to disrupt criminals, to safeguard people and businesses, to respond strongly, to protect victims and to enforce the law.
The Government have invested £250 million and will work with everyone to clamp down on the fraud epidemic. We will try to make that money work as hard as possible in co-operation with other parts of the system to get best value for money. To some extent, that is my answer to the question the hon. Member for Yeovil asked about whether £250 million is enough: it is not a bad start, and we will see how it develops to ensure that we cover the bases that we need to cover in this area as quickly as possible.
At the heart of the new approach is a new online crime centre, which has over £30 million of investment to bring Government, law enforcement, GCHQ and industry together in one place. Its mission is clear: to identify the technological enablers of fraud, which are rapidly evolving and industrialising, as I said before; to disrupt fraud at scale; and to deliver high-impact interventions at speed. The online crime centre is working on those things even as we speak.
Safeguarding and supporting victims is also at the forefront of the strategy. We are strengthening public awareness through an expanded “Stop! Think Fraud” campaign because it is important to remember that, as plausible as some of these people are, the more we can increase the suspicion and resilience of the people who interact in these systems, the more likely we are to be more resilient to fraud. I acknowledge absolutely that the psychological cleverness of a lot of fraud is something to behold. These people are very clever at what they do. They are very sophisticated in how they draw people in. All of us have a duty to try to warn individuals about the kind of dangers out there from those very sophisticated approaches.
An estimated 70% of fraud has an international element: it knows no borders. As part of our effort to counter that, the UK sponsored the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and Interpol global fraud summit in March. That ministerial summit brought together over 1,000 attendees across 115 Governments, over 40 Ministers and senior law enforcement, and over 500 private sector companies, including big tech, with the aim of strengthening international co-operation, raising global standards and agreeing co-ordinated, multi-sector action plans to deal with fraud. We also want to do what we can to try to shut down some of the scam centres that we know are appearing in particular areas of the world; where we can, we will sign memorandums of understanding with countries that may have a particular issue that we see impinging on our citizens.
The international part is extremely important. As the hon. Member for Yeovil mentioned in his speech, working with the telecoms companies and the big tech companies is equally important. I assure him that our new fraud strategy is particularly aimed at being able to ensure that we bring these different strands together and bear down on the current levels of fraud, which are completely unacceptable.