Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the number of scams related to the covid-19 outbreak; and what steps she is taking to help (a) prevent, (b) protect people from and (c) warn people about such scams.

The Government is aware criminals are exploiting the pandemic to commit opportunistic crimes such as fraud.

Although Covid-19 related fraud represents a small proportion of overall fraud reporting, we understand the devastating impact it can have on individuals. Along with partners, we have been implementing measures to ensure the public has the protection and advice needed to shield themselves from these crimes.

We know one of the best ways to deal with these scams is for the public to be well-informed on how to protect themselves. We published guidance for the public to spot potential frauds and the steps they can take to avoid them. This advice can currently be accessed at:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-fraud-and-cyber-crime

As well as this, Action Fraud, the national reporting service for all victims of fraud and cybercrime, regularly provide fraud alerts via their website, which can help individuals raise their awareness of these sorts of scams and obtain advice on how to combat these scams. This can currently be accessed at:

www.actionfraud.police.uk/news

The National Cyber Security Centre launched its Suspicious Email Reporting Service last year to remove harmful scams online. It has already seen high levels of success and, as of 31^st May the number of reports received stand at more than 6,100,000 with the removal of more than 45,000 scams and 90,000 URLs. We continue to encourage anybody who suspects an email, text or other form of communication to be suspicious to report it to report@phishing.gov.uk or forward a text to 7726, free of charge.

The Government recognises there is more to do to tackle fraud and is working closely with law enforcement colleagues, consumer groups and industry partners to consider further legislative and non-legislative solutions.