Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to prevent scam calls.

Tackling fraud requires a unified and co-ordinated response from government, law enforcement and the private sector and we will shortly publish a new strategy to address the threat of fraud, including through scam calls.

The Government has already taken a range of actions to reduce the number of scam calls. We have sanctioned the banning of cold calls from personal injury firms and pension providers, unless the consumer has explicitly agreed to be contacted, and introduced director liability for companies in relation to nuisance calls.

Through the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) we have imposed strict obligations on organisations that make direct marketing calls, live or automated, to individuals in the UK.

We continue to support National Trading Standards on the roll out of call blocking devices to vulnerable people and the National Economic Crime Centre have recently provided further funding for the delivery of additional devices. These devices have helped to provide protection against nuisance and scam calls.

We are working closely with Ofcom, the telecoms and financial industries, and law enforcement to identify further measures to tackle fraudulent calls and number spoofing, and to block fraudsters operating overseas from making calls to defraud the public.

We strongly advise anybody who suspects a call to be suspicious to report this to the National Cyber Security Centre, by logging an information report here: https://report.ncsc.gov.uk/, and to Action Fraud, the UK’s reporting service for fraud. Silent or abandoned calls can be reported to Ofcom, while recorded marketing calls can be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).