National Crime Agency: Fraud and Economic Crime

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what is the total number of National Crime Agency staff dedicated to the prevention or investigation of (1) fraud, and (2) economic crime.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, due to operational sensitivity and flexible deployment of resources in response to demand, it is not possible to provide a precise figure of staff allocated to a particular type of criminality. However, the NCA’s National Economic Crime Centre, the NECC, leads the response to economic crime, including fraud. As of 1 August 2023, the headcount for the NECC, which brings together law enforcement agencies, government departments, regulatory bodies and the private sector, was 123.5 full-time equivalent. Many other teams across the NCA also contribute to the investigation of economic crime, in addition to the NECC.

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, the only way to assess the adequacy or otherwise of resources devoted to battling fraud, which was assessed last year to cost this country £219 billion, and economic crime—I understand that the Government’s own assessment is that this costs the country between £300 billion and £350 billion—is to look at the results. Will the Minister tell the House how many investigations the NCA has conducted in each of, or even one of, the last three years? How many cases of fraudsters targeting the UK from abroad have resulted in any criminal justice outcome and how many in any form of disruptive action? If he cannot do that, can he tell us how many investigations the Government expect it to conduct this year?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Significant resources are being allocated to the NECC to improve its investigatory capabilities. It will end up with an additional 400 new officers dedicated to tackling fraud; some of those will go to the NCA, some to the City of London Police and some to regional and organised crime units. They will be recruited by March 2025. There are also 475 new highly trained financial crime investigators, partly funded by the economic crime levy, who will also be spread across intelligence, enforcement and asset recovery at key agencies. I will not speculate as to their likely success, but I certainly hope they have some.

[Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)]

My Lords, has the time not come to simplify the investigation of fraud? As the noble Lord, Lord Browne, suggested, the crimes are massive and the response is weak, even with the investment the Government are about to make. The problem with local forces investigating is that violence always trumps theft, so resources are devoted more to violence. At the moment, the complex nature of the crime—crypto, cross-jurisdictional, online—is complicated further by a 43-force response, regional units, NCA, SFO; I could go on. Surely the time has come to have one force dedicated to prevention, detection and the recovery of assets.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will be aware that the City of London Police partially fulfils that function. It prioritised investigators to the City of London as part of its recent increase in the numbers of police. Angela McLaren, the commissioner there, has a strong background in economic crime and its investigation, and the City of London Police runs an economic crime academy. The noble Lord makes an interesting point about having just one agency, but that agency is the National Economic Crime Centre, which co-ordinates all the various activities across the various police forces, including regional organised crime units.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, given that the UK cyber industry plays a critical role in supporting law enforcement to tackle cyber-enabled fraud, when will the Government reform the Computer Misuse Act so that the cyber industry does not face legal jeopardy for protecting our citizens and businesses online? Is it not high time that the Home Office came to a conclusion on its review?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I cannot speculate on that Act but the anti-fraud champion, Anthony Browne MP, has been having some close engagement with industry. An online sector charter—which I appreciate is not entirely the same thing but is certainly related—is due to be published in the autumn, so we should watch and wait for that.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, Hourglass, the charity particularly concerned with abuse of older people, has drawn attention to the problems of economic crime and financial abuse that affect many older people. Is this being taken forward by the agency as an area that it needs to give more attention to?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an extremely good point that we should not forget the victims of economic crime. I want to make two points here. First, the fraud strategy looks at three aspects of this crime: pursuing the individuals doing it, empowering people to avoid it—which takes in the victims the noble Lord describes—and preventing the scams and whatnot taking place in the first instance. Secondly, as the noble Lord will be aware, Action Fraud is being redesigned, which will help. Already, anybody who reports to Action Fraud where vulnerabilities are detected will receive a bespoke counselling service after they have engaged with it.

[Lord Faulks (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the Minister will know well that one of the themes that emerged during our debates on the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill was the inequality of bargaining power that often existed between the agencies that have to pursue fraudsters and those fraudsters, who were often heavily lawyered-up to enable them to resist any applications. One of the initiatives brought forward by this Government under the Criminal Finances Act was unexplained wealth orders. Can the Minister explain why they have been used on so few occasions? Is it because of lack of resources? Is it because of the risk on costs? What other explanation is there for such a powerful potential weapon not being utilised?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware, from other conversations that we have been having around the various aspects of the Bill that will go through the House this afternoon, that the agencies tell us they are appropriately resourced. I cannot account for the small number of UWOs that have been issued, but I will continue to keep it under review and report to the noble Lord.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Browne made a really good point about the number of people investigating fraud, because people generally feel that fraud is given a very low priority. The Government themselves have said that in recruiting people there is a particular need to understand that the type of person with the sorts of skills that need to be recruited may be different from the normal crime-fighting model that we have. They have also said that they are taking steps to address that, particularly in respect of cybercrime. Can the Minister update us on what the Government are doing to recruit people with the necessary skills in this area?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point, and I think he is aware of my opinions on this subject. Clearly, it is a difficult area for the entire economy—not just the agencies responsible for fighting crime but those who are involved in the online world where, of course, much of this crime takes place. I have referred to the large number of new officers being recruited; as far as I understand it, they are on track to be recruited according to the timescales that have been set out. I cannot really comment any more on the recruitment process itself, but I will certainly ask the question and come back to the noble Lord.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, what steps will the Government take to introduce a safer ageing strategy for older people to protect them against economic crime and fraud?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I just referred to the fraud strategy that was published in May this year, a sizeable part of which is about empowering people to avoid being defrauded in the first place. I recommend that the noble Baroness refers back to that; of course, I would be happy to discuss it further in future debates.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, would the National Crime Agency not be in a stronger position today had it not appointed as its director-general of operations Mr Steve Rodhouse, who is currently suspended from his normal duties while he is investigated for gross misconduct as head of the infamous Operation Midland, through which our former colleagues Lord Bramall, Lord Brittan and others were hounded mercilessly over allegations made by a fantasist? Is it not shocking that, so far, of all those found culpable by Sir Richard Henriques after his independent inquiry seven years ago, Mr Rodhouse alone has been the subject of a disciplinary process?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My noble friend asks a good question. It is one that I am unable to answer; I cannot speculate as to whether it would have had that much operational impact on the National Crime Agency. I go back to the point I made earlier: the NCA is well resourced and its budget has increased year on year since 2019. I do not believe that it should have had any impact, but my noble friend is entitled to his point of view.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister say something about why and how the Government protect those who engage in economic crime and fraud? Let me refer to an example. The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was closed in July 1991 after the biggest banking fraud of the 20th century. To this day, there has been no independent investigation. Through litigation against the Treasury, I obtained one document, codenamed the Sandstorm report, which shows that the Government are protecting al-Qaeda, arms and drug smugglers, murderers and others who committed fraud through that bank. I invite the Minister to place a copy of the Sandstorm report in the Library of the House and, if he will not, to explain what is so secret that it cannot be made public.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I will not place a copy of that report in the Library. I am afraid that I am not qualified to speak on events from 32 years ago.

Contest: UK Strategy for Countering Terrorism 2023

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, for those comments. I would like to associate myself with his remarks thanking our security services for the work that they do.

The noble Lord is quite right to highlight post-release situations regarding individuals who have been convicted of terrorism or terrorism-related offences. Obviously, they continue to pose a threat, as has been proved in those cases noted. Despite ongoing efforts to mitigate the terrorist risk posed by individuals in custody, the majority still require long-term risk management post release.

However, following the Fishmongers’ Hall attack, we established the probation national security division, doubled the number of specialist counterterrorism probation officers, and allowed for more robust and dedicated risk management of these individuals. Furthermore, all terrorist offenders on probation are now subject to electronic monitoring, and in June 2021 we introduced polygraph testing for terrorist offenders, giving us a powerful tool for monitoring behaviour.

HM Prison and Probation Service, the police and other agencies work closely under MAPPA—the Multi Agency Public Protection Arrangements framework—to assess, manage and mitigate the risk posed by individuals at all stages through conviction, custody, release, post sentence and notification requirements. There is much more in there about this, but it is certainly safe to say that the Government are well aware of the risk identified by the noble Lord, and are doing a lot about it.

[Baroness Warsi (Con)]

My Lords, I draw the House’s attention to my register of interests and specifically to my role as a commissioner on the Independent Commission on UK Counter-Terrorism Law, Policy and Practice. Prevent, both as a policy and particularly in its implementation, is deeply controversial. Can my noble friend assist the Government’s case by providing some detail, and specifically some data? It may well be that it he cannot do that today, but perhaps he can write to me. Can he specifically provide data the Government hold on the origin of Prevent referrals—whether by, for example, the police, schools or healthcare—that lead to Channel interventions, data on Channel referrals by age for those under the age of 18, and, finally, data on autism and other forms of neurodiversity among individuals referred to Prevent and to the Channel programme?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her question. She is quite right that Prevent can occasionally be characterised as somewhat controversial, but we should remember that it is of course ideologically agnostic. I can give some but not all of the data to which my noble friend refers. Some 3,800 referrals have resulted in individuals receiving support to move away from radicalising ideologies. In the year ending 31 March 2022, there were 6,406 referrals to Prevent, and of those, 13%, or 804, were adopted as Channel cases. I do not have the data as regards age, origin or autism, but I will endeavour to find that out. I do not know whether it is collected but I will certainly try to find out and will write to my noble friend with the answer.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. The Contest review says that the Government are intending full implementation of the recommendations of the independent review of Prevent, yet the Answer to the Question refers to the extent of extreme right-wing terrorism and the implications of that—22% of attacks since 2018 and a quarter of the MI5 caseload. My reading of the review of Prevent, which will now be fully implemented, is that it thinks that the preoccupation with or the amount of time spent on Prevent referrals for domestic extreme terrorists is misplaced and should be reduced, and the focus should be on Islamist terrorism. Can the Minister expand on that? Who then will deal with people who are at risk of becoming domestic extremists?

The other element of the Prevent review is to move away from what is pejoratively described as safeguarding. However, as we know, the route by which people become violent extremists is complicated, and it might make the Prevent strand more acceptable if it was seen as being about safeguarding vulnerable individuals rather than penalising communities.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord raises a couple of interesting points. On the subject of Prevent, the Government have indicated that they will implement all the recommendations, to which the noble Lord referred. It is perhaps worth restating the sources of terrorist threats. As the noble Lord noted, about 67% of attacks since 2018 have been Islamist, which represents three-quarters of the MI5 caseload and about 64% of those who are currently in custody. However, 22% of attacks since 2018 have been by extreme right-wing terrorist organisations. They represent about a quarter of the MI5 caseload and about 28% of those in custody for terrorism-related offences.

As regards whether Prevent is in some way ineffective, and perhaps stigmatises certain communities, we should also look at the success here. The Channel cases to which my noble friend referred just now, and which I also mentioned, represent 13% of referrals, and of those, 89% of the individuals exited with no further radicalisation concerns. I think we should be reasonably reassured that Prevent works.

[Lord Walney (CB)]

Further to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Harris, the commentary around the revised Contest strategy makes clear that the Government believe that the proportion of referrals to Channel from those at risk of Islamist radicalisation is artificially low. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case? What is the plan to address that issue?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I fear I cannot confirm whether that is the case. I will find out the answer and write to the noble Lord.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, in the other place, my right honourable friend Alistair Carmichael MP asked the Home Secretary about children who are UK citizens who were trafficked by ISIS and who are still in northern Syria, while our allies have repatriated their citizens in similar circumstances. The Home Secretary’s response had no bearing on the question, so can the Minister say whether there is anything in the strategy to tackle these very difficult cases, and what action the Government intend to take about them if not?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am not familiar with the cases to which the noble Lord’s right honourable friend in the other place referred, how many there are or what is the substance of this particular inquiry. I suggest that it is a long way from the Contest strategy that we are here to talk about, but I will endeavour to find out a little more and come back to him, rather than giving him an inadequate answer.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, a few years ago, I did some work with some anti-radicalisation programmes that looked at taking children who are young—often surprisingly young; quite often it is at the beginning of puberty when children are more vulnerable to being recruited, rather than as older teenagers—and using sport or other activities to convince them not to be radicalised and not to travel to Turkey or to Syria. One good thing about those projects is that they were run by psychologists who understood young children and people likely to be radicalised, but also by people from the Muslim community. Victims of terrorism are often Muslims themselves. Is my noble friend aware of what the Home Office and the Government generally are doing to work with local community projects that are stopping young people being radicalised?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that. I am not aware of those particular programmes, but they seem to me to make perfect sense. I commend him for his efforts and those of the wider community to which he refers.

[Lord Anderson of Ipswich (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the Government on their latest iteration of the Contest strategy, which could justly be described as world-leading. However, terrorist attacks on small venues, such as cafes and village churches, have, happily, barely featured over the last quarter of a century. Is the Minister satisfied that the proposed new statutory duties on those responsible for many hundreds of thousands of such premises to complete terrorism evaluations and to provide terrorism protection training to each worker, on pain of enforcement proceedings by a regulator, are in all respects proportionate?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to raise this subject. The Government carefully considered the impact on premises and events that may be captured by the forthcoming Bill. It includes ensuring the requirements are proportionate while achieving better public security and without placing undue burden on responsible persons. Obviously, pre-legislative scrutiny will help ensure that we create a strong Bill that is proportionate and not cumbersome or costly for smaller venues. I should like to quote the evidence of Matt Jukes of the Metropolitan Police to the Home Affairs Select Committee in June. He said:

“Having measures in place that ensure that new staff have been briefed and have undertaken very proportionate, 45-minute or so training online, in the same way as they will consider the fire safety plan or food hygiene, feels to me to be proper”.


That would seem to me to make sense.

Police Act 1997 (Criminal Record Certificates: Relevant Matter) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2023

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

That the Grand Committee do consider the Police Act 1997 (Criminal Record Certificates: Relevant Matter) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2023.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, this order amends the Police Act 1997 to require all unspent convictions and cautions to be disclosed on standard or enhanced criminal record certificates issued by the Disclosure and Barring Service—DBS.

The DBS issues three types of criminal record certificate: a basic certificate, which is available for any role; and two higher levels—standard and enhanced—which are available for roles that require a high level of public trust and/or working closely with children or vulnerable adults. More criminal history information is disclosed on the standard and enhanced checks than on the basic, in proportion to the sensitivity of the roles to which they relate.

The legislation which governs disclosure on basic certificates is different from that which determines what is disclosed on standard and enhanced. Disclosure on a basic certificate is governed by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. This sets out the periods of time after which convictions and cautions become spent. Once spent, they are not disclosed on a basic DBS certificate. Disclosure on a standard or enhanced certificate is governed by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975 and Section 113A of the Police Act 1997. Together, these allow an employer recruiting for more sensitive roles to see a person’s fuller criminal history.

The filtering rules that govern this disclosure on standard and enhanced certificates define particular criminal records as a relevant matter which must be disclosed. The definition of “relevant matter” includes the seriousness of the offence, whether there was a custodial sentence and the length of time since the date of conviction or caution. The intention is that the convictions covered by the definition of “relevant matter” should include the unspent convictions disclosed on a basic check, in addition to more serious spent convictions, which are relevant to more sensitive roles.

However, the filtering rules do not currently include explicit reference to whether a conviction or caution is spent. This has created an anomaly where, in certain limited circumstances, an unspent conviction that would be disclosed on a basic certificate would not be disclosed on a standard or enhanced certificate.

An example may assist, the most straightforward of which involves youth conditional cautions which remain unspent for three months or until the condition is met if earlier. So if somebody applies for a basic DBS check during that three-month window, the youth conditional caution will be disclosed. However, there is no provision for youth conditional cautions to be disclosed automatically on a standard or enhanced check, even during the three-month window in which they remain unspent.

This might play out as follows. Let us say that a 17 year-old receives a youth conditional caution for common assault. Two months later, they apply to volunteer in a nursery and are required to undertake an enhanced DBS check. There is no provision for their youth conditional caution to be automatically disclosed on the enhanced check so it comes back clean. However, to earn some money alongside their volunteering, the 17 year-old also applies for a job in a supermarket, for which they are asked for a basic DBS check. The basic check discloses the youth conditional caution because it is not yet spent. The supermarket therefore ends up with access to more information than the nursery.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, this appears to be a sensible SI. No concerns were raised by the SLSC, nor was the instrument reported by the JCSI. It will align the separate rules which determine what criminal record information is automatically disclosed on a basic DBS check, on the one hand, and what is disclosed on the higher-level standard and enhanced DBS checks, on the other, so that higher-level checks will never disclose less criminal information than is disclosed on a basic DBS check. The Explanatory Memorandum states:

“The Home Office is working with DBS to ensure that this change and the timing for this to come into effect, is widely understood by those it may affect”.


The example that the Minister gave of the 17 year-old working in a supermarket and then also applying to work with children was a very good one, and one which I have actually seen myself in youth courts. I had not realised that there was this anomaly, and I am glad that this SI is rectifying it.

This morning, I sent the Minister a particular conundrum I had, which is actually outside the strict remit of this statutory instrument. I will just run through that scenario, and I hope the Minister will be able to answer the question it raised with me. I was recently sitting as a magistrate to hear domestic violence protection order applications. Of course, these are civil orders. The applicant was a young mother, who was represented by a lawyer who happened also to be a part-time judge. The respondent, the former boyfriend, was unrepresented. The applicant’s lawyer suggested that the best way to deal with this matter was to not find any facts and just put an order in place for a relatively short time, and everyone could continue living their lives separately and the matter could be disposed of in that way quite quickly. I explained to the respondent that, if he were to breach that order, it would be a criminal offence and he needed to be aware of that. The respondent said to me that he was employed as a primary school teacher, and he was in a much more serious situation than seemed to be realised by the court. He would have to tell his headteacher if the DVPO had been put in place. So I put it off for a contested hearing and advised the young man to get a lawyer.

Subsequently, I talked about this case with a legal adviser, and she said that, as a solicitor, she would not have to disclose whether she had any equivalent civil order put in place. She would not have to tell the Solicitors Regulation Authority, so she doubted whether this primary school teacher would have to do so in his case. I did not know the answer to that question. I suspect there may well be more stringent regulations for teachers, particularly primary school teachers, and there is of course the wider question of all these—really quite a lot of—civil orders which magistrates now put in place, for the reasons we have often debated, and whether there are any guidelines for the various professional organisations about what the requirements for disclosure are and whether that is a ramification which may be taken into account within the whole DBS system.

Also this morning, I went on to the website of the charity Unlock, which deals with people who have left prison and who have had community sentences and that sort of thing. It has a number of worked examples about when things are declarable and when they are not, and at what stage of the job application process matters are declarable. It is an extremely complex picture. It is something which people often fall foul of, and the rules are not clear at all. Can the Minister say anything in a wider sense about how these checking procedures are being reviewed and simplified, from the point of view both of employers and of those people who do have criminal records, so that a system which is better understood can be operational, which would be to the benefit of both sides?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank both noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I am glad that they both agree that this instrument is necessary to align the two sets of rules that determine disclosure of criminal records on basic certificates, on the one hand, and the standard and enhanced certificates on the other. This will ensure that on all occasions the levels of disclosure on criminal record certificates align with the levels of risk and vulnerability inherent in particular roles.

Perhaps if I go into a bit more detail, it will answer all or most of the noble Lord’s questions. I shall come back to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, on his specific example towards the end. It is worth pointing out that the circumstances in which this might occur are very limited, which suggests that the practical impact is likely to be fairly low. The nature of the offences involved also reduces the impact of this anomaly. The DBS has had regular contact with employers regarding criminal record checks across a range of sectors, and we are not aware of any evidence that this lack of alignment between the two sets of rules has had any significant real-world impact. It is worth stating that. Although we believe this impact to be low in practice, it makes sense to rectify the situation.

To go into more of the sort of detail that the noble Lord, Lord German, asked for about the types of convictions or cautions that are currently not disclosed on standard and enhanced certificates, we believe that the practical impact of this lack of alignment is low. However, as mentioned earlier, with youth conditional cautions, which are only unspent and disclosed on a basic DBS check from three months of issue, it will apply only to those youth conditional cautions because they are immediately spent—so youth cautions will not be automatically disclosed. I hope that that answers that point.

Some of the other things that would be disclosed include earlier convictions in a string of repeat convictions. In that circumstance, there is likely to be a clear standard or enhanced DBS certificate. Then there are relevant orders, which include restraining orders and care orders—that sort of thing—if they relate to convictions that are old or less serious and if they have unlimited, indefinite or “until further order” end dates. As I said, we believe that the impact of this will be relatively low, but I hope that that gives an example of the sort of thing that we are dealing with here.

The noble Lord, Lord German, asked what cautions are not disclosed on standard and enhanced certificates for the relevant matter, and asked whether this was not a safeguarding risk. We believe, as I have said a number of times, that the impact is likely to be low, given the limited circumstances in which it can occur, and the nature of the offences involved. I have gone through them to some extent: I have talked about the youth conditional cautions, the early convictions and relative orders, so I think that that generally answers the relevant question that the noble Lord asked me.

To go back to the specific question from the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, on the case that came before him as a magistrate, this is not a complete answer—we will have to do some consultations with the Department for Education as well—so I hope that he will be content to leave that with me, and I shall return when I have concluded those discussions. From the perspective of the disclosure and barring regime, the domestic violence prevention order, if not handed down as part of a conviction, does not need to be disclosed by an individual to an employer, nor will it be automatically disclosed on any kind of DBS check. It is possible that a civil order such as this might be included as additional information on an enhanced check, but only if the police consider it to be relevant and proportionate to disclose. Teachers are subject to regular DBS enhanced checks, with children’s barred list checks. If there is a conviction, either due to a breach of the order or its attachment to a conviction, it would be disclosed on an enhanced DBS check. If asked by his employer, the teacher would be obliged to tell them of the conviction and the order.

I take the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, that this is somewhat complicated—he makes a very good point about that. The Disclosure and Barring Service ensures that applicants and employers have guidance to explain the changes and the impact that they may have in any particular circumstances. It goes to both noble Lords’ questions as well as to the external bodies that have been consulted. We have certainly engaged with Unlock; whether it approves of this measure, I really could not say, but I would imagine so because it brings clarity to this situation. But we have certainly engaged with it and other interested stakeholders on a regular basis.

I should also say that existing guidance makes it clear that, where an employer is aware of a conviction, it should not be an automatic bar to employment. We urge employers to exercise a balanced judgment and take into account factors such as the person’s age at the time of the offence, how long ago the offence took place, the nature of the offence and its relevance to the individual’s role. All of those deserve to be restated. I will take the suggestions of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, about simplifying the guidance, or the regime that delivers the guidance, and making it a little easier for people to understand.

With that, I think I have answered the questions. I thank both noble Lords for their contributions and once again commend this draft instrument to the Committee.

Motion agreed.

Equipment Theft (Prevention) Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 14th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, has given fulsome thanks to all the people involved in the passage of this Bill. He has played a prominent role in it. As he summed up, it is about stopping manufacturers having Mickey Mouse locks on their equipment. I certainly know from my own experience that the newer locks on equipment—whether construction or general rural equipment—are far more sophisticated, as they involve satellite links and all sorts of other technology. This means they are really difficult to break. Nevertheless, eternal vigilance is needed on this front because the people who seek to steal such equipment will be moving their technology forward as well. This Bill is a welcome step in the right direction. I congratulate the noble Lord on seeing it through this House.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Blencathra for taking this Private Member’s Bill through the House—his efforts were far from inconsequential. I welcome the support the Bill has received in this House and in the other place, and join my noble friend in paying tribute to Greg Smith MP.

The Bill has received cross-party support from the outset, and the Government have wholeheartedly supported it. The Government are determined to make our cities, towns, villages and rural areas safer. As we have heard during debates on this Bill, thefts of agricultural machinery, and in particular all-terrain vehicles, are of great concern. The Government recognise the significant impact these thefts have on our rural communities and businesses, and it is essential we ensure that they are adequately protected. These thefts are preventable: fitting immobilisers and forensic markings as standard is inexpensive and the tools to do so are readily available. The Government expect manufacturers to play their part in protecting items from theft, which is why the Government are taking action by supporting this Bill. The Bill is a great example of government, law enforcement and industry working together to protect hard-working people from theft.

As my noble friend noted, the Bill includes a power for the Secretary of State to extend its provisions to other types of machinery via secondary legislation. During the Commons stages the Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire committed to considering the extension of the provisions to other equipment designed or adapted primarily for use in agricultural or commercial activities and tradespeople’s tools. Minister Philp recognised that the regulations would require careful consideration to ensure that the technical detail is correct. To that end, the Home Office has undertaken a call for evidence, seeking views on these detailed matters. The call for evidence closed yesterday, and the responses will be carefully considered before secondary legislation is laid before both Houses and debated in due course.

I reiterate my thanks to my noble friend Lord Blencathra, and echo his thanks to the National Farmers’ Union and to the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for construction and agricultural machinery theft, Superintendent Andy Huddleston, for his work in developing the measures in this Bill. I also echo my noble friend’s praise for the police sergeant and detective sergeant he mentioned. I hope to see the Bill receive Royal Assent, as I believe it can have a significant impact on these thefts. The Government are in full support of it.

Bill passed.

Firearms Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Colgrain for bringing forward this Private Member’s Bill to the House and for his introduction. I join him in paying tribute to Shaun Bailey MP in the other place for initiating the Bill. I also commend my noble friend for the thoughtful and very compelling case he has made for these two firearms measures. I thank all those who have contributed to the debate today. I welcome their support and constructive comments on our firearms controls.

I am very pleased to say that the Government support this Bill. As the noble Lord, Lord Browne said, it improves the existing legislation and, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, just noted, our laws must remain fit for purpose and be kept under review. I am a shotgun certificate holder myself and a member of the BASC, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. I have an interest in this area, and I know that the BASC, as a representative of shooting interests, is broadly supportive of the measures put forward in this Bill too.

We keep this country’s strong gun controls under review and are prepared to consider taking action to strengthen them further if the evidence shows this to be necessary. That is why we fully support the measures contained in this Bill, and it is why, as my noble friend noted, we launched a firearms consultation on 29 June, following recommendations made in the wake of the terrible shootings in Keyham and Skye. The firearms licensing consultation will be open for eight weeks. We will listen most carefully, and with a balanced and proportionate approach, to the views which come forward on whether further changes are needed to this country’s robust firearms controls.

This Bill is about addressing two vulnerabilities which have been identified in the existing licensing controls. We committed to taking action on both of these issues following a public consultation conducted on a number of firearms safety issues in late 2020 and early 2021. As noble Lords have heard today, the Bill tightens the law around miniature rifle ranges, while preserving the existing benefits that they offer. It still enables those who are new to target shooting to experience the sport without having to be a certificate holder, but it ensures that this will take place in a safe and controlled environment by removing the exemption that currently allows those operating such ranges to do so without first obtaining a firearms certificate. Removing this exemption will mean that the operator will be subject to the usual police criminal record and suitability checks, as well as police checks to ensure that the rifle range is run safely and that the firearms used there are stored securely. Miniature rifles will also be more tightly defined in law so that only less powerful .22 rim-fire firearms may be used on miniature rifle ranges.

As we have discussed, the Bill also tackles the unlawful manufacture of ammunition by introducing a new offence of possessing component parts with the intent to assemble unauthorised quantities of complete ammunition. The police have raised concerns that the component parts of ammunition are too easy to obtain and are being used by criminals to manufacture whole rounds of ammunition. The new offence means that the police will be able to better prosecute cases where criminals are manufacturing ammunition, including where only some of the component parts are present, provided that intent is shown. This measure supports the police in tackling gun crime.

Both these measures received support in the public consultation that I referred to earlier. It was widely acknowledged, including by those representing shooting interests, as well as those who wish to see tighter firearms controls more generally, that these changes will help to strengthen our firearms controls. This Bill will make a valuable contribution to firearms legislation, while making sure that those who wish to continue to legitimately engage in firearms activities, whether that involves target shooting at clubs or activity centres, the legitimate home loading of ammunition or other lawful activities, are able to continue to do so.

I shall come on to some of the more detailed questions. My noble friend Lord Attlee has spoken about the position of older deactivated firearms which can be possessed but not sold or transferred without complying with the current deactivation standards, which are aligned with EU deactivation standards. I understand his concerns about this issue. We will keep all firearms matters under review and will consider our deactivation standards to see whether changes are necessary to the current position. As regards his specific question about REUL, I cannot comment, but I shall obviously make sure that his concerns are registered. I also note his comments about the possible value of his grandfather’s firearm, but I have to say, given its provenance, it might be worth rather more than he thinks.

My noble friend, as well as the noble Lords, Lord Browne and Lord Ponsonby, also raised the question of how we continue to keep people safe with the emergence of firearms produced using 3D printers. 3D-printed firearms fall within the scope of the Firearms Act 1968 and are subject to the same controls and licensing requirements as any other firearm. There have been successful prosecutions; in fact, I literally just googled this, and there was one on 23 June in West Yorkshire for possession of a 3D-printed firearm. So the law is working—but the Government are committed to tackling the threat posed by 3D-printed guns, and we are working closely with law enforcement, including the National Crime Agency, as part of the multi-agency response to the emergence of 3D-printed firearms.

The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, questioned me a little more closely on the intent point with regards to the new ammunition offence. We listened carefully to the calls for the clauses on ammunition to be explicit about the need for criminal intent to be proven, to ensure that those who legitimately manufacture or home-load ammunition are not inadvertently caught by the provisions of the Bill. Because of this, the drafting of the legislation is, rightly, very clear about the need for intent to be proven. I have heard what the noble Lord says. As I say, the whole issue remains under constant review.

The noble Lord, Lord Browne, asked me about the consultation and whether it will include a presumption in favour of granting a firearms licence. We did look at this issue in detail. The legislation makes it clear that the police must first be satisfied that issuing the licence will not endanger public safety or the peace. Therefore, such changes to the legislation would make no practical difference to the current application practice, which is centred on the requirement for the police to be satisfied that the applicant is suitable and safe to be granted a firearms licence.

The Government will continue to listen carefully to recommendations that we receive about how to further improve our firearms controls. We are open-minded to change, while ensuring that our response is proportionate and focused on areas of vulnerability where those are identified. Where necessary, we must strengthen the legislation on which our controls are based, and the measures in this Bill of course do that. But we will also use other tools—and I think these will answer a number of the questions of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. We have committed £500,000 in funding to support development and rollout of a new training package for firearms licensing staff, developed by the College of Policing and the National Police Chiefs’ Council. In due course, the training will become mandatory for police firearms licensing staff.

On 14 February this year, we refreshed the statutory guidance for the police on their licensing functions, to ensure that the police are making the necessary inquiries before granting or renewing firearms licences. The statutory guidance aims to raise standards and improve consistency across all police forces. In addition, the Government have worked with the medical profession to put in place robust medical arrangements as part of the licensing controls, to ensure that those who hold firearms are physically and mentally fit to do so. A new digital marker system to flag firearms owners to doctors has been introduced to GP surgeries, which will further strengthen these arrangements.

The Home Office has also launched a review of firearms licensing fees: the fees that the police charge for the issue or renewal of firearms licenses. We will be consulting on any changes that will be required later this year. The purpose of the review is to provide full cost recovery for the police, so that they have the resources they need to maintain effective and efficient licensing arrangements that meet the needs of firearms owners, while also ensuring that the public are kept safe.

His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and the fire and rescue services will be conducting a thematic review of police forces’ firearms licensing arrangements in 2024-25. That will provide us with an important opportunity to take stock of the changes that have been introduced and to ensure that we are doing all we can to ensure that our licensing arrangements are safe and meet the needs of the shooting community, alongside the overarching need to ensure the safety of us all.

I am glad that we will make our robust firearms controls even stronger through the measures in this Bill. The new requirement for a firearms certificate will enable the police to check the suitability and security of those running miniature rifle ranges, while preserving the benefits that they offer, including to newcomers to the sport of target shooting.

I shall address the final couple of questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, as regards a regulator, or perhaps a central licensing body, to administer firearms certificates. There are no plans at present to create such a body to administer firearms licensing. We believe that there is some value in having local police firearms licensing departments. That enables the police to be in touch with the local communities and local medical practitioners, as well as being able to visit the applicants.

As regards the noble Lord’s question about the coroner’s report and the timetable, I am afraid I do not have any information on that as yet. Of course, I shall report back as soon as I am able to. As regards the Online Safety Bill, I have heard what the noble Lord has said, and I will make sure those concerns are passed on to the relevant department. I am afraid I do not have any comments that I can usefully make as regards toys, although I note the incredible likeness between the real firearms and some of the toys that are manufactured.

The amendment to the legislation on ammunition will give the police the tools to bear down on criminals who fuel gun crime by manufacturing ammunition unlawfully. The introduction of the new offence of possession of component parts with the intention to assemble unauthorised ammunition is another important step in the fight against crime.

I reiterate my thanks to my noble friend Lord Colgrain for bringing this Private Member’s Bill before the House. I hope to see it receive Royal Assent, as I believe it will have a significant impact in strengthening our firearms controls still further. The Government are in full support of the Bill and the important changes it will bring.

Finally, I am afraid I do not know the difference between temporary licences and the more traditional ones, if you will, but I will find out and report back.

Support for Migrant Victims

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gale]

To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the answer by Lord Sharpe of Epsom on 1 December 2022 (HL Deb col 1869), what progress they have made in evaluating the pilot of the Support for Migrant Victims scheme; and when, if at all, they intend to rescind their reservation on Article 59 of the European Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (the Istanbul Convention).

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, we are carefully considering the findings of the support for migrant victims scheme pilot evaluation to inform any future policy decisions. Once we have considered all the evidence in the round, we will communicate our decision on the Article 59 reservation.

[Baroness Gale (Lab)]

While I thank the Minister for his reply, it is practically identical to the one that he gave me on 1 December last year. How long does it take to evaluate a pilot scheme? This has been going on now for more than two years. How much longer is it going to take and, when it is accepted, will he report back to the House so that the Government can then consider removing the reservation on Article 59?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her praise for my consistency. I do not know when the consideration will be completed but, as soon as it is, I shall of course report back to the House on all the matters that she has raised.

[Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)]

For as long as the Government take to come to a view on this, there will be thousands of women—mainly women—living in desperate situations and forced to live with their abusers. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report and the feedback have been very thorough and the recommendations are very clear—and, as the noble Baroness said, this has been going on for some time now. As the commissioner said:

“We urgently need to put safety before immigration status when it comes to domestic abuse victims”.


Do the Government now agree?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, the first thing that I would say is that the pilot may have concluded but the scheme is still in operation and is continuing to be funded. We are providing a further £1.4 million a year until 2024-25 to continue to support the migrant victims scheme, so the circumstances that the noble Baroness describes are certainly not the case. We have read and, obviously, published the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s report, and we will respond to that in full very soon.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, noble Lords will know that sometimes the evaluation of schemes takes a long time and there has to be not only an evaluation but a consultation. Could my noble friend the Minister go into a bit more detail on who has to be consulted and what particular issues there are, and why it is taking so long to be evaluated?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes, I can. The experts have given evidence from within the sector, and we have also looked at evidence from police representatives and a variety of others. As I say, I cannot answer the question as to why it has taken so long, but it is good that the evidence is being considered in full and, as I say, I shall follow up with a full report as soon as we have a response to publish.

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, which aspect of Article 59 do the Government have a concern about? Noble Lords will remember that this is about migrant women who are victims of violence, but it is not carte blanche to give them all residence; it is very carefully caveated. I remind noble Lords that it is where the competent authority considers that it is necessary in order to get them to co-operate with law enforcement. Can the noble Lord help me a little with what the problem is?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

In response to the noble Baroness’s question, it is important to note that we are far from alone in this. As noble Lords will be aware, the majority of countries that have ratified the Istanbul convention have reservations on one or more of the 81 clauses. In the case of Article 59, I think there are 12 other countries that still have reservations. We have made it very clear that our compliance position on Article 59 is under review, pending the support for migrant victims scheme evaluation. Our reservation is without prejudice to the policy conclusions that we reach in the light of this evaluation. I cannot really go further than that at the moment, but I will come back to the noble Baroness and the rest of the House as soon as I possibly can.

[Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)]

Does the Minister accept that in the current hostile environment towards migration, women whose immigration status depends on their husband are under even greater pressure to remain in possibly violent relationships?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am afraid I do not accept the hostile environment remark. What I should say with regard to the situation the noble Baroness describes, which I think comes down to data sharing and the firewall situation that often gets raised here, is that both the police and immigration enforcement share a commitment to safeguard individuals they encounter. We acknowledge that data sharing between the police and the Home Office can be a contributing factor that can influence the decisions of migrant victims not to report a crime and that perpetrators can sometimes use the victim’s immigration status to exert fear or control, but that will inform the migrant victims protocol which is due to be published at the end of this year.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, was this not meant to be one of the flagships of the Conservative Government? Tackling violence against women is claimed by a lot of people to be a really important theme of Conservative policy, and I would like to know why the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, is not getting an answer sooner. Could not the Minister at least give us some reasons? He says he does not know the reasons: could he not look into this so that we do not have to have another Question about this next week? The International Agreements Committee was very concerned about this. The case of migrant workers has been made: they are in a very vulnerable position.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I say to the noble Earl that we ratified the convention and that was the point behind the reservation: we would have been unable to ratify if we had not laid a reservation against Article 59. I also say that in most respects we go further that, or are at least fully compliant with, all the other aspects of the Istanbul convention. We go further, for example, on issues like FGM and stalking protection orders. So I do not really accept the noble Earl’s premise, I am afraid.

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, last year the Domestic Abuse Commissioner stated that it is likely that 32,000 victims who have no recourse to public funds will require support each year. As the noble Lord has just said, the Government announced a further £1.4 million to extend support for migrant victims in the coming year. How many people does the Minister think that will support? For his information, I will be seeing the Domestic Abuse Commissioner next Tuesday, so it would be very good to be able to supply her with the answer to my question.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I know that the pilot helped 425 victims and, since the ongoing scheme has been extended, 950 in total—including those 425—have been helped. Those are the main figures that I have at the moment. The “no recourse to public funds” policy is based on the principle that access to state support should reflect a migrant’s strength of connection to the UK. Immigration policy is clear that migrants coming to the UK should be able to provide for themselves financially without relying on benefits from the state. Access to public funds is normally granted only to those who have been given indefinite leave to remain. However, other support is available to migrants who have suffered domestic abuse through destitute domestic violence concessions—three months’ crisis support through which individuals can access safe accommodation and public funds—and through the domestic violence indefinite leave to remain route.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, Mary Tudor said that, when she died, “Calais” would be engraved on her heart. When the Home Secretary moves to higher realms, will “In due course” be engraved on hers?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have no idea.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, it is impossible to follow that question, so I will follow the question from the Cross Benches. Does the Minister agree that it is very important that the Home Secretary, Ministers in the other place and officials in his department know the views of Members of the House of Lords? My noble friend Lady Gale raised this six months ago. What representations or pressure has the Minister made to or put on the various Home Secretaries we have had in that period, and their officials, about the views of the House of Lords? After today, will he go back and say, “Baroness Gale has raised this again; she has the support of the House and something should be done about it”?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Noble Lords can rest assured that I will take this back. However, I have heard in many debates in the House in recent weeks calls for more evidence. The fact is that we have evidence and we are considering it carefully. Noble Lords should applaud that.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

There is a degree of urgency in this that the Minister is not acknowledging. We do not ratify Article 59 because it is still the Government’s policy that, other than those who benefit from the little pilot scheme, local authorities are not allowed to permit migrant women who are subject to domestic abuse to access shelters. This disgrace is going on and we should stop it as soon as possible.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I have just outlined some of the other options available to the migrant women the noble Lord describes. They are far from without support. As I have alluded to, there is also a migrant victims protocol detailing other aspects of the work being done that will be published towards the end of this year.

Uganda: LGBT People

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler (CB)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and I declare my interest as an ambassador for UNAIDS.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, the UK is appalled by the Government of Uganda’s decision on 26 May to sign the Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law. We have made this clear to all levels of the Ugandan Government and continue to do so. This Act will have an impact on the UK-Uganda relationship. It undermines the protections and freedoms of all Ugandans, enshrined in the Ugandan constitution. It will increase the risk of violence, discrimination and persecution, and it will set back the fight against HIV and AIDS.

[Lord Fowler (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply—I agree with every word. Is it not a fact that the Anti-Homosexuality Act passed by the Uganda Government opens the way to penal action against homosexuality for no reason other than that a person is homosexual? Franky, it is one of the most evil laws that has ever been passed. Surely the question for the Government here is what we can do about it. I put it to the Minister that, first, we should give all support to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury in his efforts to counter the deeply prejudicial propaganda put forward by some other religious leaders. Secondly, rather than cutting back aid, we should provide extra assistance for civil society organisations combating the discrimination that is now so widespread in Uganda and is doing so much harm and damage.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord, whom I commend for his work on AIDS and the like. He is right: the Act is one of the most regressive pieces of modern legislation against the LGBT+ community in the world. Consensual same-sex sexual acts carry a sentence of life imprisonment. I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s remarks about the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, who I believe wrote to the Archbishop of Uganda, Stephen Kaziimba, to express his grief and dismay at the Church of Uganda’s support for the Bill and was subsequently criticised for doing so. Kaziimba went on to describe the Archbishop as being ill informed. Our ODA efforts in Uganda are primarily to drive clean, green and inclusive growth and mutual prosperity but also to improve the resilience, and defend the rights, of vulnerable people. I very much hope that they will continue to pursue those objectives.

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register and I welcome the response thus far from the Minister. However, the assurance I seek from—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I sense that the House would like me to continue. I seek assurances from the Minister that our high commission is in contact with and supporting Sexual Minorities Uganda, particularly Dr Frank Mugisha, its executive director, and other human rights defenders. Although this is not his department, can the Minister look into and ensure that the FCDO is not funding organisations that are campaigning across that part of Africa to remove LGBT rights? Given the debate on, and the amendment we recently passed to, the Illegal Migration Bill, will he and the Home Office ensure safe and legal routes for LGBT+ people and their human rights defenders?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Again, the noble Lord raises some very good points. He will not be surprised to know that I do not know the precise answers on the organisations funded by the FCDO, but I will take that back and look into it. I can confirm that the high commissioner continues to meet a wide range of stakeholders, across both the Government and elsewhere, to express the UK’s concerns. The subject of safe and legal routes will come up later, but I hear what the noble Lord said.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I am glad to have heard the previous question; I am sure that it should have had precedence over mine. I intended to add how glad I am that this situation is affecting Uganda-UK relations, and my noble friend the Minister has outlined some of the ways in which it is doing so. Would he not agree that it also affects Commonwealth relations? Is it not essential to ensure that the Commonwealth’s opinions on these matters are directed to put Uganda under pressure? That is whole point of being in the Commonwealth in the first place. Will he ensure that Marlborough House is also aware of this— I think that it is—and that it is putting pressure on Uganda, both behind and in front of the scenes, to mend its ways?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend. The UK continues to work with other Commonwealth member states and civil society partners to reform outdated laws of this type and to end discrimination and violence against LGBT+ people. We have discussed this situation with the Commonwealth Secretary-General. The UK also provides funds to support the promotion and protection of LGBT+ rights across the Commonwealth, and at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2022, the UK announced more money to support organisations such as the Commonwealth Equality Network. My noble friend is right that Commonwealth relationships will be of extreme importance in this matter.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, this horrible legislation is the result of a decades-long campaign by Christian nationalist organisations in the USA and Russia. Uganda is but one target country; there are many others. Will the UK Government ensure that civil society organisations, the NHS and academics work with people in Uganda to ensure that the devastation to the public health and economy of Uganda is properly and fully documented?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises very good points on those subjects. I will go into a little more detail on public health. At the moment, Uganda has approximately 1.4 million people living with HIV and AIDS. Every year, 54,000 Ugandans are infected, including 6,000 newborns. I am not an expert on the religious dimensions to this law that the noble Baroness cited, but I know that the UK has cut off some funds to certain interreligious councils that have supported this legislation.

[The Lord Bishop of Ely]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reference to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury’s letter to the Archbishop of Uganda, and for hearing us, as Bishops, say how much we deplore what has been decided by the Archbishop of Uganda in support of this ignoble law. In the light of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop’s intervention, and all that has been said about engaging with civil society, will the FCDO engage with the Archbishop’s office and make use of the Church’s contacts to offset some of the very conservative religious engagement from other countries in Uganda and engage with people on the ground in Uganda to seek to change this abhorrent law?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question and once again pay tribute to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury for his letter to the archbishop in Uganda. This subject has come up before and of course I am more than happy to take back to the Foreign Office the suggestion that it should continue to work with the Church and other interfaith groups which have an interest in this subject.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Prime Minister’s direct intervention with the President of Uganda. As the noble Lord, Lord Howell, pointed out, what will really result in change is the international community coming together. Can the Minister tell us what the Prime Minister has done to contact President Biden to ensure that the US action is matched by our action and that we build an international coalition to stop this terrible Act?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I completely agree with the noble Lord that there needs to be international co-operation. So far, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the EU have all issued separate statements in response to the Act. The noble Lord is right to raise the subject of the US President. Both he and the Secretary of State have issued statements in response to the Act, and the US has actually gone a little further. Our principal concern with that is that the Ugandans reacted very predictably to the US actions, and we are still very keen to make sure that our aid and our ODA get to the people who need it the most. However, I hear what the noble Lord said, and I will certainly take it back.

[Lord Popat (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as the Prime Minister’s trade envoy to Uganda and as someone who was born in Uganda. This Act is a grave assault on the human rights and the constitution of Uganda, as well as on international human rights laws that Uganda signed up to. In my role as a trade envoy, I find many UK companies now unwilling to invest in Uganda and looking elsewhere. The Bill harms not only the LGBT community in Uganda but the country as a whole. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that it will impact not only the LGBT community but the economic prosperity of Uganda?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I am more than happy to agree with my noble friend. The UK Government are obviously aware of the concerns raised by the business community and other organisations about the Act. We advise all to carefully consider the impact of the Act on their staff and operations and seek legal advice as appropriate. The Act will undermine Uganda’s development and economic goals and will create a barrier for international investment and tourism, as my noble friend has highlighted.

National Security Bill

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments
Tuesday 4th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 22B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their Reason 22C.

22C: Because the law already makes sufficient provision in relation to donations to political parties.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, with the leave of the House I will also speak to Motion B and ask that this House do not insist on its Amendment 122B and do agree with Commons Amendment 122C in lieu.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for meeting once again with me and speaking with the Security Minister. During the previous debate on the Bill in this place, I talked about the importance of the Bill finishing, and continued engagement is the way to achieve that. I thank him and all in this House again for their valued scrutiny of this Bill.

I will start with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I understand the intention behind it. The Government are very much alive to the risk presented by foreign interference, as evidenced by the various ways we are seeking to tackle it through this Bill. However, as I said during previous debates on this matter:

“Political parties are already required by law to take all reasonable steps to verify the identity of a donor and whether they are permissible”.—[Official Report, 21/6/23; col. 227.]


The introduction of an independent review to consider the matter is not an approach the Government would support. The scope of the review the noble Lord proposes implicitly suggests that the duty should be on political parties to prevent foreign interference, not the relevant enforcement bodies with the appropriate tools and knowledge. The Government submit that this is not the way to approach concerns about the risk of foreign donations entering our political system, although we agree that work is needed in this area.

As such, I offer an alternative to today’s amendment in lieu. If noble Lords agree with the Government that the amendment before the House is not the right approach, the Government will commit to consult on enhancing information sharing between relevant agencies or public bodies to help identify and mitigate the risks of foreign interference in political donations that are regulated by electoral law. The relevant public bodies in scope of the consultation would include Companies House and the Electoral Commission, among others. This consultation would take place within a year of the Bill coming into force. It would seek views on how relevant agencies and bodies can obtain and share information relating to the provenance of a donation, which might not be available to the recipient of a donation. We consider that greater information sharing may well help in the prevention and identification of breaches of the law in relation to impermissible donations from foreign powers.

The Government also commit to tabling a report in the House at the end of this consultation which will set out conclusions and next steps. I want to be clear that the Government’s intention is not for any changes made as a result of this consultation to become a tool to be wielded against political parties where they could not have reasonably known the provenance of a donation. As I have noted before, political parties do not have the investigative capabilities of banks to trace layers of financial transactions. Rather, this consultation would look at ways in which information sharing between the relevant agencies and public bodies that do have those capabilities could support parties in mitigating the risk of foreign donations.

The rules on political donations are clear: donations from foreign powers, whether made directly or indirectly, are illegal. This consultation will allow us to consider how best to strengthen the information-sharing and enforcement system that supports those existing rules. This goes a considerable way towards addressing the noble Lord’s concerns, and in a way that will deliver real benefit. I am committing the Government to undertake this work in good faith, and I ask the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, to withdraw his amendment on this matter, in favour of our suggested approach.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by saying how much we support the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. I am glad that the Government have listened and come to an amicable agreement with the noble Lord which takes us forward. I thank the Minister for the way he has done that and for the concession that the Government have made on the updating of the memorandum of understanding, although clearly issues remain between the ISC and the Government, hence Motion B1 tabled by my noble friend Lord West, which we support. Aside from the Motion itself, it will allow continuing discussions, and indeed perhaps negotiations, around how the memorandum of understanding can be revised or replaced, including by negotiation, hence its importance.

I think it is really significant that still, even at this late stage of the Bill, my noble friend Lord West, speaking on behalf of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which gives parliamentary oversight of the activities of the security services, is not happy with where we have arrived at. I think it is incumbent on the Government to reach an agreement with the ISC. Clearly, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord West this afternoon, we are not in a situation where that has occurred. There are all sorts of issues that remain between the Government and the ISC, as has been evidenced by various things that have happened today, and the Government need to respond to those.

I will add just a couple of other points. One is that the Government gave a commitment during the passage of the Justice and Security Act 2013 and the Minister gave assurances to Parliament that the memorandum of understanding was a live document that would be regularly reviewed and updated. Are the Government of today completely ignoring that commitment that was made to Parliament? If so, we are in a really difficult situation, because it means that parliamentary oversight is undermined by the fact that Ministers making pledges to Parliament can just be ignored in the future by the Government. I say—we often say, all of us say—that we will not press an amendment, on the basis that the Minister, speaking from the Dispatch Box, makes commitments that are read into the record. That is an important part of parliamentary scrutiny. Ministers are asked to do that and Members of Parliament in the other place and noble Lords withdraw amendments. But here we have an example of where the Intelligence and Security Committee is saying that pledges and commitments were made to Parliament that the memorandum of understanding would be regularly updated and the Government have not done that or are still not in agreement with the ISC. I think that is a really important point.

For the avoidance of doubt, I remind your Lordships again that I do not seek to compel the Prime Minister to go to the Intelligence and Security Committee. I shall just say what I believe, and your Lordships will have to make up their own minds. Given that the Intelligence and Security Committee is the oversight body for this Parliament, I would have thought that if the ISC were regularly asking the Prime Minister to attend, the Prime Minister would go—not because he is compelled to go but because it is an important part of that parliamentary oversight and the Prime Minister of our country negotiating and liaising personally with the Intelligence and Security Committee is of real importance. So I say to noble Lords, as others have heard me say before, that all of us would be surprised by the fact that no Prime Minister has been since 2014; nearly 10 years. It has been nine years, in case I am quoted as not being accurate, since a Prime Minister has been. So I gently say that, while I do not seek to compel the Prime Minister, I politely ask the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, whether the Home Office has suggested to the Prime Minister that, in his diary, he might consider going to see the Intelligence and Security Committee when he can.

My noble friend Lord West’s amendment raises several important issues, but the most significant is that we need to send a message through supporting it that the ISC is still not at one with the Government. That is a serious issue and needs somehow to be resolved. I believe that supporting my noble friend’s amendment will continue to put pressure on the Government to ensure that they come to an arrangement with the ISC in the end, such is its importance. If my noble friend chooses to test the opinion of the House, we will be happy to support his Motion B1.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, very much for his words and his engagement on a number of matters throughout the Bill, and for not pressing his Motion. I also thank other noble Lords who have participated in this very short debate, including my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley, who brought a very useful perspective on the current state of play with regard to political party donations. I gently remind the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that donations from foreign powers are already illegal and suggest that the word “consult” means that all political parties will be consulted.

On Motion B, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, said that he does not seek to compel the Prime Minister to come to the ISC. That is certainly not the tone of the remarks he has made in a number of debates in this House. It seems to me that he does seek to compel the Prime Minister to attend the ISC. He will know that I have answered before the question as to whether the Home Office and No. 10 Downing Street have had discussions on this subject. I will not answer it again. I have nothing else to say on Motion B, as I have already spoken to it. I ask this House not to insist on its Amendment 122B and to agree with the House of Commons in its Amendment 122C.

Motion A1 not moved.

Motion B

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom]

Moved by

That this House do not insist on its Amendment 122B and do agree with the Commons in their Amendment 122C in lieu.

122C: Page 62, line 13, at end insert the following new Clause— “Intelligence and Security Committee: memorandum of understanding (1) The Prime Minister and the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament must consider whether the memorandum of understanding under section 2 of the Justice and Security Act 2013 should be altered (or replaced) to reflect any changes arising out of this Act.
(2) Consideration under subsection (1) must begin before the end of the period of six months beginning with the day on which this section comes into force.”

Cybersecurity

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Monday 3rd July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress has been made in implementing the recommendations on cybersecurity made by Sir Patrick Vallance in his report Pro-innovation Regulation of Technologies Review: Digital Technologies, published in March.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, in the Government’s response to the review, we set out that the Home Office is taking forward work to consider the merits and risks of the proposals made. We have created a group that includes law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, the cybersecurity industry and system owners to consider these issues and reach a consensus on the best way forward.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, Sir Patrick made a very clear recommendation to amend the Computer Misuse Act to include a statutory public interest defence for cybersecurity researchers and professionals carrying out threat intelligence research. This has been extremely long awaited. We finally had a review, which started in 2021 and reported this year; we had a consultation, which concluded in April; and now we have the steps that the Minister talked about. What conclusion can we expect at the end of the day? Progress on this has been totally glacial given the importance to innovation and growth of this change to legislation.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I agree that there is an enormous necessity to get this right, but that is part of the problem of why things are perhaps not happening as fast as the noble Lord would like—progress is far from glacial. These issues are incredibly complicated because, as the noble Lord noted, the proposals would potentially allow a defence for the unauthorised access by a person to another’s property, and in this case their computer systems and data, without their knowledge and consent. We therefore need to define what constitutes legitimate cybersecurity activity, where a defence might be applicable and under what circumstances, and how such unauthorised access can be kept to a minimum. We also need to consider who should be allowed to undertake such activity, what professional standards they will need to comply with, and what reporting or oversight will be needed. In short, these are complex matters, and it is entirely right to try to seek a consensus among the agencies I mentioned earlier.

[Lord Arbuthnot of Edrom (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out on the register. Does my noble friend accept that it is very difficult for Governments to keep up with the speed of change of technology in their legislation? The Computer Misuse Act is now 33 years old. If progress is not glacial, please could we have an injection of urgency into the changes to it that we need?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend that it is difficult for Governments to keep up with the pace of technological change, but I also reflect on the fact that much of the legislation going through your Lordships’ House at the moment contains many efforts to future-proof it in this area. As I said, I do not agree that this is glacial. I know that the Act is old. The report was delivered only earlier this year and the discussions are very complicated, as I just highlighted.

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

My Lords, if it is not glacial, it is very slow. The point we have heard from both noble Lords is that Sir Patrick Vallance made nine recommendations; the Government have accepted them. We know that cybersecurity is a real problem—the Government accept that—but what everybody is waiting to hear is what the Government intend to do and the timescale.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am trying to answer this question. Sir Patrick Vallance reported in April; it is now July. I do not think that is glacial or particularly slow. The fact is that these are complicated matters that need to be considered very carefully. They involve all sorts of different implications for us all.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in addition to the amendment to the 1990 computer Act and the opportunity the Minister will have to address that in due course, will he reflect on what Sir Patrick said about international harmonisation and the need for regulation of significant emerging technologies to reflect what other countries are doing, as well as what we are doing?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very good point, and one I inquired about this morning. There is a considerable exchange of information with our friends and allies and other interested countries across the world. It is perhaps worth pointing out that the Department of Justice in the States has just reissued guidelines for prosecutions only. Guidance and prosecutorial discretion are major features of the American way of doing it; we are going a slightly different route and seeking consensus, but of course we will consult.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, the Minister may be aware of reports out this morning that Barts Health NHS Trust has been hacked, potentially by a ransomware group of thieves—I suppose that is the right word—and that 7 terabytes of data may have been taken control of, which of course may well involve confidential personal medical data. Does the Minister agree that it is really important that the NHS workforce plan includes and considers the NHS’s IT needs and IT skill needs? Is that something the Minister is talking about with the health department?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I have not spoken about it directly with the health department, but I note from other debates that we have had in your Lordships’ House over the past few months that a skills shortage in the area of computers, data and whatnot is a problem across all economies, not just ours.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and his colleagues in the Home Office, and those in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence, for the excellent and detailed briefings they give us on security issues, which are really helpful. What precautions are taken to make sure that this information is not passed, either deliberately or inadvertently, to representatives of the Government of Russia?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid I have no idea; I will find out.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I am a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. We are currently conducting an investigation into ransomware and cybersecurity, which are very much at the heart of this Question. I agree with the noble Lord opposite who said that the Computer Misuse Act is now 33 years old—it is. Heaven knows the world has changed since then. I agree with the Minister that an enormous amount of co-ordination has to be done within government to get this right. Can the Minister provide some future opportunity in government time to have a more general debate about the issues involved? Otherwise, knowing what this House is like, it will take a year or more before the report that the committee eventually introduces can be debated here.

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

The noble Viscount makes a good point. I am obviously unable to comment on the scheduling of parliamentary business but, when the group that I referred to in my initial Answer has finished its consultations and considerations and come to a consensus, we will of course report back to Parliament. I imagine that will include a debate.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, does not everything that has been said on this Question today demonstrate the importance of fresh intelligence work and, therefore, the importance of changing the Computer Misuse Act?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

I do not think that anybody disagrees with that. I am just saying that we need to get it right and do it properly.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, the Vallance report talks about the fact that, under the Computer Misuse Act, professionals conducting legitimate cybersecurity research in the public interest currently face the risk of prosecution. It asks us to look at the examples of France, Israel and the United States. Is my noble friend the Minister aware of any possible unintended consequences of modifying the Act to align it with the changes in those countries?

[Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)]

Yes; one of the considerations that is being looked at is the various potential unintended consequences of making some of these changes. As I say, they involve a fairly significant invasion of privacy—I suppose that is the right phrase. There may well be circumstances in which that is appropriate but, obviously, who does it and how they do it are incredibly difficult.

Fighting Fraud (Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee Report)

Lord Sharpe of Epsom Excerpts

Friday 30th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Sharpe of Epsom) (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes on securing this debate. I am grateful to her and to all noble Lords who have participated and have made some very good and thoughtful points. I also express my thanks to my noble friend and all members of the Fraud Act 2006 and Digital Fraud Committee—the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, has stolen the joke that I was going to make about the fraud squad—for its comprehensive report, Fighting Fraud: Breaking the Chain. I also thank noble Lords also for their acknowledgement of the progress that the Government have made. The report’s insightful analysis and constructive recommendations helped to shape the Government’s Fraud Strategy, which was published in May.

I have been asked a number of questions and will endeavour to cover them in the time available and, obviously, I commit to writing if I do not. This is a complex subject, so I shall do my best to be brief. I start by emphasising that the Government take the issue of fraud very seriously indeed and are dedicated to protecting the public from this devastating crime type. I have already had meetings with Anthony Browne MP, the anti-fraud champion, and I know that he is working very hard on his brief—and also, incidentally, has a very strong background in this area from his work with the British Bankers’ Association back in the day.

As most noble Lords have noted, fraud is the most frequently committed crime in the UK. Every year, billions of pounds are lost to fraudsters, including the savings of hard-working people up and down the country. As my noble friend Lady Morgan and others have noted, it is not a victimless crime. Given the scale of the challenge, tackling fraud requires a unified and co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector. I thought that the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, was entirely right on that. It stands to reason that a collaborative effort will allow us to protect the public and businesses better.

I would say to my noble friend Lord Sandhurst that we are acting now. The Government’s approach is split across three pillars: first, we are pursuing fraudsters and ensuring more criminals are behind bars; secondly, we are blocking fraud at source and strengthening efforts to frustrate fraudsters as they target potential victims; and, thirdly, we are empowering people so they are more likely to avoid fraud and the harm that comes with it.

Within the fraud strategy, the Government have committed to a programme of ambitious action. To start with law enforcement, we are beefing up the law enforcement response to fraud by launching a new national fraud squad with 400 new officers, deploying the UK intelligence community, UKIC, to relentlessly pursue criminals wherever they are in the world and putting more fraudsters behind bars through better investigation and prosecution processes.

If I may, I shall go into a little more detail about the national fraud squad, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, asked me about it. This is a specialist engagement, and the noble Lord, Lord Browne, the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, also asked about it. The national fraud squad will draw together existing capabilities for fraud across national and regional policing and the NCA. It will cover proactive, intelligence-led and reactive investigations. Investment into the national fraud squad has, and will continue to, enhance these capabilities and increase resources to better tackle fraudsters targeting the UK public and private businesses. The national fraud squad will consist of investigation and intelligence teams from within the NCA, the City of London Police and regional organised crime units across England and Wales. It is being bolstered by 400-plus new officers, as I have said, and that will be by 2025; they will investigate and disrupt more fraudsters through strategic co-ordination at local, regional and national level.

The NFS will be jointly led by the City of London Police, as the national police lead, and the NCA as the operational lead for fraud. Teams in the City of London Police and the NCA will work together with UKIC to share intelligence in real time to understand the threat and take proactive enforcement action across government and the private sector against the most harmful fraudsters targeting the UK public.

The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, made some very strong points about skills. Police and investigators need to have the appropriate digital skills and capabilities, as criminals get better at exploiting them and the technology evolves—a point that was very well made. We are working with the College of Policing to review the fundamental training provided to all police officers and investigators, and the City of London Police and National Economic Crime Centre are also developing a people strategy to address recruitment and retention challenges. At this point, I should just mention the City of London Police commissioner, Angela McLaren, who was appointed in January 2022. She was previously the assistant commissioner there for fraud and cybercrime, so she is an expert and will obviously have a fairly major part to play in this work.

We will stop fraudsters from trying to make victims of us all, by banning cold calls on financial products and banning criminal access to SIM farms. The consultation on that ended only last week or the week before. Fraudsters use those to send mass messages, and we need to take down fraudulent websites more quickly. We will make sure that every part of the system is incentivised to take fraud seriously by working with the tech sector to put in place extra fraud protections, shining a light on which platforms are the safest. The Government will make it much easier to report scams by replacing Action Fraud with a state-of-the-art system, making sure that intelligence is shared quickly and that action is taken early to stop frauds. I shall come back to Action Fraud in a bit more detail in a second.

We will ensure that victims of fraud are reimbursed and supported by changing the law so that more get their money back. We will improve communications so that people know how to protect themselves from fraud and how to report it. My noble friend Lord Young of Cookham made some very powerful points about the evidence given by Revolut, and I shall come back to that as well shortly. Put simply, the strategy marks a step change in our approach to rooting out fraudsters and protecting the public from these pernicious and devastating crimes.

I shall now deal with the more specific points. First, on the subject of telecommunications, criminals abuse telecommunications networks to target people and con them out of their hard-earned money, including through scam texts and calls. We are committed to doing everything that we can to tackle this awful crime and bring the despicable criminals responsible to justice. In 2021, the Government and industry signed a telecommunications fraud charter, which is a voluntary code of action against telecommunications fraud. As a result of the charter, over 600 million scam texts have been blocked from reaching potential victims.

However, as my noble friend Lady Morgan, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and others noted, we recognise that there is more to do, and we will continue to work closely with industry, the regulators and consumer groups to bring in the further measures set out in the fraud strategy to close the vulnerabilities that criminals exploit. This needs to be a joint effort across sectors, as the answer to solving fraud does not lie solely with the telecoms sector. As announced in the fraud strategy, the SIM farm consultation has just closed and we will come back with more on that in due course.

Online fraud is a significant part of the problem, obviously. The scale of online fraud is alarming. As my noble friend Lord Sandhurst noted, nearly 80% of all acts of fraud have some sort of online element. We are deeply concerned by the devastating impact it can have on victims—a point very powerfully made by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, who also highlighted the rapidly evolving nature of the technology. As noble Lords will be aware, the Online Safety Bill is designed to provide some future-proofing, but we will all need to be aware of and alive to the nature of evolving technology.

In the last year, Lloyds, Santander and TSB have published data regarding the origin of frauds that have impacted their customers. Their research suggests that approximately two-thirds of all online shopping scams now start on two Meta-owned platforms: Facebook and Instagram. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville, made some powerful points about the various types of online scams and how convincing they look. I was going through some examples of those with the Anti-Fraud Champion, Anthony Browne, the other day, and the noble Viscount is absolutely right that they are incredibly realistic. Clearly Meta needs to do a good deal more about these.

Of course, I stress that not all companies facilitate or allow for this type of thing and some are very rigorous with their protocols, but there is clearly very much more still to be done by some companies, and the Online Safety Bill will target them. As noble Lords know, the Bill has completed Committee stage in this House and the Government are committed to passing it before the end of the parliamentary term. The Bill will designate fraud as a priority offence, as others have noted, and will require in-scope companies, including social media providers, to tackle fraud on their online platforms. The Government have listened to victims’ testimonies, as well as evidence from trusted stakeholders and noble Lords, including in Committee. This informed our decision to bring fraudulent advertising into the scope of the Online Safety Bill. This means that the largest social media and search companies will need to take action to prevent fraudulent advertisements on their services.

Combined, these duties will mean that in-scope services will have to crack down on criminals abusing their platforms to defraud innocent members of the public. The Bill will be enforced by the regulator Ofcom, which, as noble Lords know, will have the power to issue very significant fines to companies that fail to tackle fraud—we are talking about fines that could equate to significant percentages of turnover, which I am quite sure will focus minds.

The Government are also bringing forward the online advertising programme to consider how advertising regulation should be modernised for the digital age. It will build on the fraudulent advertising duty in the Online Safety Bill and will look at the role of the entire advertising supply chain. We will be publishing a response to our consultation on that in due course.

Further, building on the success of a series of voluntary charters agreed with the retail banking, telecoms and accountancy sectors, we have initiated work on an online fraud charter with the tech sector. This agreement between the industry and government will deliver a number of further commitments to help raise the standards of best practice and intensify tech firms’ work to reduce fraud on their platforms. As part of the online fraud charter, we have asked firms to: introduce stringent verification checks on financial advertisers, including cross-referencing with the FCA checklist before allowing financial adverts on platforms; adopt a simple, seamless and consistent fraud reporting mechanism for users, with better follow-up action and advice provided; improve data sharing with government and other private sector partners to identify and block more frauds; and promote counterfraud education to the public to help them spot and avoid frauds, and signpost support when needed.

The Government recognise that authorised push payment fraud, where people are manipulated into making a bank transfer to a fraudster, is a growing problem; this was referred to by my noble friends Lady Morgan, Lord Young and Lord Sandhurst. We welcome the actions of the financial services industry to help prevent it. The banking industry has shown industry leadership in committing to a fraud sector charter with the Government that has delivered ambitious and innovative actions to prevent authorised fraud and protect customers. We welcome these initiatives, but more still needs to be done both to prevent fraud and to ensure that victims are not left paying for fraud through no fault of their own.

The Payment Systems Regulator is working with the payments sector on a range of measures to combat authorised push payment fraud. This includes requiring the 14 largest payment providers to publish APP fraud rates, improving data sharing and mandating reimbursement of APP scam victims by banks and other payment service providers. To the point made by my noble friend Lord Young, payment service providers are consulting on the definition of “gross negligence”, which will include a threshold and limit on claims. The providers must do more to prevent APP fraud; they are in a unique position to be able to prevent it, and the work is ongoing. This is in addition to existing initiatives such as confirmation of payee, strong customer authentication, and the industry-led banking protocol.

The Government are also investigating the possibility of legislating to enable further delays to payments in high-risk fraud scenarios, as mentioned by others. We have also committed, through the fraud strategy, to making it easier for banks to repatriate money to victims. This means returning victims’ money where possible, rather than reimbursing.

My noble friends Lord Sandhurst and Lady Morgan and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, have recognised that the current law on corporate criminal liability does not hold organisations and their senior persons adequately to account. That is why, following the Law Commission options paper on corporate criminal liability, the Government tabled an amendment to the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill to introduce a new failure to prevent fraud offence, and I am grateful to the House for approving that. The reforms will help to protect victims and cut crime by driving a culture change towards improved fraud prevention procedures in organisations. It will also mean that organisations will be held to account if they profit from the fraudulent actions of their employees.

We debated on Tuesday the wish of some noble Lords to change the threshold for this offence. I will not go over all the arguments again, but the offence proposed by the Government has been designed to balance the fraud prevention benefits with minimising burdens on small business. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, for her interesting personal reflections on how hard the business environment currently is for small and medium-sized enterprises. A strong UK economy must be an environment that supports people to open and grow businesses. There are existing powers to prosecute small organisations and their employees if they commit fraud, and these powers are further improved by the introduction of the identification doctrine reforms. We need to keep the burdens in check, but I am sure that we will revisit these arguments soon.

On the subject of the courts, the judicial process and criminal justice system, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, referred, we realise that fraud cases, and the often large volumes of complex digital material that they generate, require a significant amount of time and resource to undertake a thorough investigation and bring a prosecution to court. To ensure that prosecutors have the right tools to take on fraudsters, we will conduct a new, independent review into the challenges of investigating and prosecuting fraud. The review will consider: modernising the disclosure regime for cases with large volumes of digital material; whether fraud offences and the Fraud Act 2006 meet the challenges of modern fraud, including whether penalties still fit the crime; looking at civil orders and penalties to prevent fraudsters reoffending; and making it easier for individuals to inform on associates in criminal fraud networks.

We also recognise the impact that delays can have on victims, witnesses and defendants, and we are taking steps to reduce the overall Crown Court backlog. As well as removing limits on the total number of sitting days in the Crown Court for a second year in a row, we are recruiting around 1,000 judges to increase judicial capacity in the criminal courts with the largest caseloads. We will also recruit around 2,000 new magistrates by 2025. We are continuing with the planned construction of the City of London law courts, which are scheduled to open in 2026 and will facilitate the hearing of more economic crime cases.

I committed to come back to Action Fraud, because it is vital that victims of fraud have the confidence and trust to come forward to report instances of fraud and know that their case will be dealt with properly. Action Fraud is a key part of this. We are working alongside the City of London Police to refresh and upgrade the current Action Fraud service. We will be providing over £30 million to the City of London Police to replace Action Fraud with a more efficient new system that will provide better support services and reporting tools for victims and better intelligence to law enforcement so that it can investigate and disrupt more fraudsters. I am pleased to share that improvements are already being rolled out and more are coming, with the new service expected to be fully operational by 2024. This will further improve the support services and reporting tools for victims, provide greater intelligence, as I have said, and allow for greater prevention and disruption.

I have not really talked about victims yet, which is remiss of me. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, pointed out, the impact on victims can be very significant indeed. It can have a devastating impact on mental health, and particularly on the elderly and most vulnerable people in our society—and that is not to forget the serious financial, as well as emotional, harm that can be caused. That is why we have taken various steps, as detailed in the fraud strategy, to improve the support that victims receive. The Action Fraud National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit provides support for victims of fraud and cybercrime whose cases are not investigated by local police. The Home Office is working with the City of London Police to deliver a nationwide rollout of these units from 2023.

We are also supporting National Trading Standards’ Scams Team in the rollout of a multi-agency approach to fraud hubs across England and Wales. These hubs aim to bring together different local agencies to enable fast information sharing to identify the needs of a vulnerable person. It is important that victims of fraud receive the support they are entitled to. We are working to improve the victim support system to ensure that everyone receives the support they need to feel safe again.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies, raised the subject of data sharing. As outlined in the Economic Crime Plan 2, published earlier this year, sharing data is a key route for the public and private sectors to identify and block frauds and economic crime. Large amounts of financial data flow through the UK every hour. The overwhelming majority of this data relates to legitimate activity, but a small proportion involves criminal activity. Currently, too much of this data sits siloed in different organisations, in different formats with unclear legal and technological gateways for sharing it. The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill and the reforms to the general data protection regulation will remove the legislative barriers to economic crime data sharing. Now is the time to capitalise on those opportunities.

Under a public/private economic crime data strategy, we will produce and implement a strategy that enhances the exploitation of available data across the ecosystem to better prevent, detect and pursue economic crime. In addition, we will work across public, private and international boundaries and improve the flow of information between regulated sector entities; improve the flows of information and intelligence between public and private organisations, including supervisors; improve the flows of information and intelligence between public organisations; and identify and address obstacles to international information sharing.

My noble friend Lord Sandhurst, the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, talked about the international dimension to this. Of course, the fraud threat to the UK is varied, but more than a third has an international element. As part of the strategy, we aim to become the global leader in tackling fraud. We will develop stronger partnerships with international fraud threats, share best practice and advance the UK’s aim to lead a multilateral response. This engagement will culminate in the UK Government-chaired global fraud summit in 2024, at which we will look to agree an international co-ordinated action plan to dismantle fraud networks.

I am afraid I am unable to comment further at this point on the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, about the Computer Misuse Act. I heard what she said and I will of course take that back to the department and report.

In closing I again thank my noble friend Lady Morgan of Cotes for securing this debate and all those who have spoken. It seems to me that there is a broad consensus about the vital importance of this issue. Fraud is affecting far too many people and ruining far too many lives. As I have made clear, the Government are committed to stopping fraud at source and pursuing those responsible wherever they are in the world. I am afraid I cannot update the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, on her 10% comments, but I commit that my personal target is to reduce fraud to zero. I accept that that is highly unlikely, but there is no harm in aiming high.

The recently published Fraud Strategy represents a step change in our response, and I assure noble Lords that we will be assiduous in implementing its commitments as we take the fight to fraudsters, because ultimately this is about protecting the public. We must and we will do everything in our power to prevail. I hope I have answered noble Lords’ questions.