Asked by: Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat - Dorking and Horley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to publish a second Telecommunications Fraud Charter.
Answered by Dan Jarvis - Minister of State (Cabinet Office)
‘Spoofing’ is a common technique used by fraudsters and spam callers to disguise their telephone numbers and pretend to be someone else, such as a bank or another person.
Ofcom have already strengthened activity against ‘spoofed’ calls. New rules were introduced last year to ensure that operators block calls from suspicious numbers from the UK and overseas.
Ofcom have announced further initiatives which will make it more difficult for spammers and scammers to use UK telephone numbers to harm consumers. For instance, in July 2025 Ofcom launched a consultation proposing that telecoms companies withhold the caller ID (CLI) of calls that appear to come from a UK mobile number (+447) when they originate abroad, unless the number’s validity can be verified. This measure aims to close the loophole that previously allowed spoofed mobile numbers via roaming to bypass existing blocks.
The Home Office is also currently developing a second Telecommunications Fraud Charter. This new charter will build on the existing voluntary anti-fraud efforts in the telecoms sector and will aim to go further in identifying, preventing, and disrupting fraud activities.
Asked by: Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat - Dorking and Horley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to end the use of the Four Points Hotel in Horley to house asylum seekers.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
I refer the Hon Member to the answer I gave on the 4 September to Question 71421.
Asked by: Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat - Dorking and Horley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she plans to create national guidelines for preventing adult grooming.
Answered by Jess Phillips - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Home Office)
The Government is taking a range of actions to prevent the grooming and exploitation of vulnerable adults.
To tackle criminal exploitation, we are introducing a new cuckooing offence in the Crime and Policing Bill to target criminals who groom and exploit vulnerable people in order to take over their homes for criminal purposes. We are also introducing a new offence of coerced internal concealment to address the appalling practice whereby criminals exploit children and vulnerable adults to cause them to internally conceal items such as drugs for criminal purposes. Both offences will be supported by statutory guidance for police as well as non-statutory multi-agency guidance which will include information on preventative action to protect those at risk of these terrible forms of adult grooming and exploitation.
In terms of adult grooming for sexual exploitation, we are working closely with police and others to tackle the drivers of trafficking for sexual exploitation, including through law enforcement operational intensifications aimed at tackling modern slavery threats and targeting prolific perpetrators.
Asked by: Chris Coghlan (Liberal Democrat - Dorking and Horley)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of gathering data on time taken between immigration appeals tribunal decisions and the receipt of resulting deportation notices to appellants.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Official statistics published by the Home Office are kept under review in line with the code of practice for statistics, taking into account a number of factors including user needs, the resources required to compile statistics, as well as quality and availability of data.