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Written Question
ICT: Fraud
Tuesday 6th February 2024

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will take steps to ensure that (a) technology and (b) telecommunications companies help to prevent fraud.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)

The Online Safety Act (OSA) received Royal Assent last year and will require the tech sector to tackle fraud on their platforms or face significant fines from Ofcom.

Alongside the OSA, on the 30th November, the Government announced the Online Fraud Charter. This is the first voluntary agreement of its kind, in which the largest tech companies in the world have committed to implementing new measures to combat fraud in the UK. The Charter’s commitments seek improvements to blocking fraud at source, making reporting fraud easier for users and decreasing the time it takes to remove content and ads found to be fraudulent. The Charter also seeks to improve data sharing across the sector and with law enforcement, and to increase the transparency of risks on platforms and services.

The Government and the telecommunications industry also signed the Telecommunications Fraud Sector Charter in 2021. Since then, the sector has introduced firewalls that detect and stop scam texts from reaching customers, as well as deploying measures to prevent scam calls. The firewalls have stopped 870 million scam text messages since January 2022.

The Government is also taking legislative action to ban “SIM farms”, devices that allow criminals to send scam texts to thousands of people at the same time.


Written Question
Economic Crime
Tuesday 6th February 2024

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will appoint a Minister for Economic Crime.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)

The Home Office and HM Treasury lead the policy response to economic crime for government and are responsible for coordinating the public-private Economic Crime Plan 2, published in March 2023.

Fraud and economic crime are complex and multifaceted issues that touch upon much of the economy and manifest in many different ways. It is right that these two departments jointly lead the government’s response, to support system leadership that fully considers the long-term ramifications of decisions that impact both the UK’s prosperity and security.

A single departmental approach or single Economic Crime minister would, in the government’s view, undermine our efforts to tackle holistically the challenge that economic crime presents.


Written Question
Information Sharing
Tuesday 6th February 2024

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will introduce legislation to mandate information sharing between (a) payment service providers, (b) technology companies and (c) telecommunications companies.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)

Under current regulations, victims of unauthorised bank fraud are automatically entitled to reimbursement in virtually all cases. This is not the case with victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud – currently ten of the UK’s largest banks are signed up to the voluntary Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) Code.

The government have legislated through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to require the Payments System Regulator (PSR) to introduce mandatory reimbursement for APP scams within the Faster Payment System, where 98% of APP fraud takes place.

The PSR have confirmed that mandatory reimbursement will come into force in October 2024.


Written Question
Bank Services: Fraud
Tuesday 6th February 2024

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of a fair and proportional reimbursement framework for bank fraud.

Answered by Tom Tugendhat - Minister of State (Home Office) (Security)

Under current regulations, victims of unauthorised bank fraud are automatically entitled to reimbursement in virtually all cases. This is not the case with victims of authorised push payment (APP) fraud – currently ten of the UK’s largest banks are signed up to the voluntary Contingent Reimbursement Model (CRM) Code.

The government have legislated through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to require the Payments System Regulator (PSR) to introduce mandatory reimbursement for APP scams within the Faster Payment System, where 98% of APP fraud takes place.

The PSR have confirmed that mandatory reimbursement will come into force in October 2024.


Written Question
Nitrous Oxide: Misuse
Tuesday 11th July 2023

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, when she plans to bring forward legislation making it a criminal offence to be in possession of NOS canisters.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The Government has committed to control nitrous oxide as a Class C drug before the end of the year.

We will bring forward legislation as soon as possible, but this will remain subject to Parliamentary procedure.


Written Question
Passports: Applications
Friday 14th October 2022

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to increase levels of staffing at HM Passport Office to help tackle the backlog of applications following the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by Tom Pursglove - Minister of State (Minister for Legal Migration and Delivery)

His Majesty’s Passport Office has added 1200 additional staff since April 2021. The increase in staffing delivers against both the capacity plan for this year, and in preparation for 2023. These staff have helped to process passport applications in record numbers, and recruitment will continue to ensure that attrition is covered so that it remains fully resourced.


Written Question
Asylum: Kent
Monday 7th September 2020

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum seekers are in temporary housing and hotel accommodation in (a) Medway Council and (b) Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council local authority areas.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The number of asylum seekers accommodated in each local authority can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/asylum-and-resettlement-datasets#asylum-support

The figures include those in temporary and hotel accommodation.


Written Question
Undocumented Migrants: English Channel
Wednesday 27th May 2020

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many migrants have crossed the English Channel to enter the UK in (a) January, (b) February and (c) March 2020; and what the countries of origin were for those migrants.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The data showing the number of migrants intercepted crossing the English Channel to enter the UK for the months of January, February and March is shown in the table below, including the claimed nationalities for those migrants:

(a) January 2020 – 94; (b) February 2020 – 182 and (c) March 2020 – 187.

By nationality:

Jan

Feb

March

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

53

109

104

Iraq

16

40

63

Syria Arab Republic

16

18

13

Afghanistan

5

3

5

Kuwait Bidoun

1

Yemen

5

1

Pakistan

4

1

Mali

2

Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

1

Senegal

1

Egypt

1

Guinea

1

Grand Total

94

182

187

The total number of migrants for the April period cannot yet be released as the figures have not passed through a data quality check and cannot be assured. The figures will be published at a later date, once they have been

verified.


Written Question
Undocumented Migrants: English Channel
Wednesday 27th May 2020

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of illegal migrants who have crossed the English Channel to enter the UK since 1 April 2020.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

The data showing the number of migrants intercepted crossing the English Channel to enter the UK for the months of January, February and March is shown in the table below, including the claimed nationalities for those migrants:

(a) January 2020 – 94; (b) February 2020 – 182 and (c) March 2020 – 187.

By nationality:

Jan

Feb

March

Iran (Islamic Republic of)

53

109

104

Iraq

16

40

63

Syria Arab Republic

16

18

13

Afghanistan

5

3

5

Kuwait Bidoun

1

Yemen

5

1

Pakistan

4

1

Mali

2

Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast)

1

Senegal

1

Egypt

1

Guinea

1

Grand Total

94

182

187

The total number of migrants for the April period cannot yet be released as the figures have not passed through a data quality check and cannot be assured. The figures will be published at a later date, once they have been

verified.


Written Question
Undocumented Migrants: English Channel
Tuesday 26th May 2020

Asked by: Tracey Crouch (Conservative - Chatham and Aylesford)

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans her Department has for the deportation of illegal migrants who have crossed the English Channel to enter the UK during the covid-19 outbreak.

Answered by Chris Philp - Minister of State (Home Office)

It is the policy of this Government to return those not in need of protection.

The majority of countries who are signatories to the Dublin Regulations which governs the return of those seeking asylum in the UK to a third country have announced temporary suspension of transfers to and from all EU Member States due to the Corona virus.

Returns to third-countries can still take place where there is a suitable route of return.

We are ready to resume Dublin returns as soon as travel restrictions are lifted