Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking to increase the proportion of online scams resulting in (a) a full investigation and (b) the prosecution of the perpetrator.

The Government is committed to increasing improvements in the response to fraud – including investigations and prosecutions. The government is committed to taking fraudsters off the streets and increasing arrests and prosecutions. We the government is committed to increasing arrests and prosecutions and that is why we have been working with partners from law enforcement, the public and private sectors to explore all options available to give our policing colleagues what they need to keep pace with criminals and encourage innovation within industry.

In February 2021, we set out an ambitious framework for tackling fraud against individuals and businesses, which will be published in detail later in 2022. It will commit key partners in the public and private sectors to do more to tackle fraud, focusing on restricting opportunities to commit fraud increasing public awareness and strengthening victim support.

We are already increasing law enforcement investigative capacity in the National Crime Agency and in Regional Organised Crime Units across England and Wales. As part of the Police Uplift Programme to recruit an additional 20,000 officers by 2023, we have channelled additional officer resource into the Regional Organised Crime Unit network to work on a host of serious and organised crime threats including fraud as well as posts to the City of London Police to fulfil their role as a world-class fraud specialist force. We will also establish a new fraud investigative function in the NCA to target the most complex and serious fraudsters, meeting a manifesto commitment to create a new national cybercrime force focused on fraud. We are also increasing intelligence capabilities in the NCA and the national security community to identify the most harmful criminals and organised criminal gangs.