Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what preventative steps she is taking to reduce the number of fraud cases.

The Home Office has supported the rollout of the National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit (NECVCU) to all 43 forces in England and Wales. The aim of NECVCU is to support victims by building their confidence, helping them recover finances, and significantly reducing the likelihood of repeat victimisation. Since its inception in 2018, NECVCU has supported 440,994 victims of fraud and since January 2021, NECVCU has also helped victims recover £3,685,201.

Additionally, the Home Office has provided funding to City of London Police to create a coordinated police Fraud Protect Network. The network is made up of local, regional and national law enforcement officers and is designed to reduce the threat of fraud and revictimisation by providing consistent fraud prevention advice to the public.

The Home Office continues to engage with banks, trade organisations and third sector organisations to ensure proper advice and support for victims of fraud. Our “Stop! Think Fraud” campaign helps people spot and avoid fraud, and provides fraud prevention and recovery advice. Stop! Think Fraud - How to stay safe from scams.

We are also continuing to work with individual sectors to support industry in disrupting attempts at fraud before they reach the public.

We launched the Insurance Fraud Charter in November 2024 with key insurance firms to reduce insurance fraud.

We are also developing a second telecommunications Charter to ensure the telecommunications sector takes additional steps to identify, prevent and disrupt fraud. Additionally, we are considering legislative action to ban “SIM farms”, technical devices that allow criminals to send scam texts to thousands of people at the same time.

The Online Safety Act codes of practice, which will require social media companies to take proactive measures to stop fraud originating on their platforms, will come into effect in March. The Chancellor and the Home Secretary have made clear that if insufficient action is taken in this area but those companies, the Government will consider what further steps need to be taken

Later this year, we will also publish an expanded Fraud Strategy that covers the full range of threats that our society faces from this crime.