Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information his Department holds on the number of people who attempted to make reports of fraud to Action Fraud over the latest 12-month period for which data is available; of those who attempted to make such reports how many were successful over that period; how much enforcement activity was undertaken as a result of those reports; by which police authorities such action was undertaken; how many telephone calls were made to Action Fraud over that period; and, of those calls, how many were answered by Action Fraud.
Answered by Ben Wallace
Action Fraud provide online and telephone based services which enable the reporting of both fraud and cyber dependent crime.
Between October 2017 and September 2018 the service received 505,497 calls.
Of these callers, 314,668 callers spoke to a member of staff. The 190,829 callers that did not speak to a member of staff will include callers that chose to use the online service or callers who waited but did not receive an answer.
505,587 reports were made in this period, by phone or online, of which 318,629 were classified as crimes as set out in the Home Office Counting Rules. In the same period 57,181 crimes were disseminated for enforcement, by the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), which analyses reports of crime made via Action Fraud. The NFIB disseminated a further 20,075 reports in this period either as intelligence or as a result of concern for the victim, this is in addition to victim based referrals made by contact centre staff direct to their local police force.
Force breakdown for outcomes are also available at this webpage
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/crime-outcomes-in-england-and-wales-2017-to-2018
Asked by: Andrew Selous (Conservative - South West Bedfordshire)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is an aggravated offence for a pregnant women to use (a) cannabis, (b) ecstasy, (c) heroin and (d) other illegal or street drugs during pregnancy; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Nick Hurd
There is no specific offence for drug use. It is an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 for any person to possess a controlled drug. The penalty will depend on: the class and quantity of drug, where a person and the drugs were found, their personal history and other aggravating or mitigating factors.
The Government is determined to protect vulnerable women from drug misuse. Advice about alcohol and drugs is available to pregnant women as part of their routine antenatal care. Pregnant women who misuse alcohol or drugs will be put in contact with a midwife or doctor who has special expertise in the care of pregnant women with alcohol or drug problems. They will be able to refer them to an alcohol or drug treatment programme and other organisations that can help.