Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what plans she has to (a) reduce the number of scam calls, (b) protect victims and (c) help ensure that offenders are prosecuted.

The Government will not tolerate criminals lining their pockets while causing serious financial and emotional harm to victims. We recognise the devastating impact fraud can have and how crucial it is we do everything in our power to protect victims and bring the perpetrators to justice.

We are working closely with the industry, regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups to crack down on scam callers and to protect victims and to ensure they are not left out of pocket through no fault of their own.

We have been working with Ofcom to disrupt phoneline enabled scams. Ofcom have adopted new rules relating to Call Line Identification (CLI), which means phone numbers used to perpetrate scams will be identified, filtered out and prevented from reaching the recipient. I would also highlight the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) governs unsolicited live or automated direct marketing calls and imposes strict obligations on organisations which make direct marketing calls to individuals in the UK. The ICO has the powers to impose civil monetary penalties of up to £500,000 for serious contraventions of the PECR.

We are working with national and local policing, including police and crime commissioners, to support the victims of such crimes. The National Economic Crime Victim Care Unit, based within Action Fraud, also plays an important role by helping victims to recover and to protect themselves against future fraud.

Our law enforcement and intelligence colleagues also play a crucial role in keeping the public safe and bringing these opportunistic criminals to justice. We are considering all routes, including legislation, to give them the tools they need to go after the fraudsters and, crucially, to protect those who are vulnerable to these harmful crimes.

The Fraud Action plan, detailing our strategy to further strengthen our approach in combatting fraud will be published after the 2021 Spending Review.

However, the best way to this problem is to try and identify the sources of these calls and stop them.

• We are encouraging the public to forward suspicious text messages to 7726 (which is free of charge) and to forward suspicious emails to report@phishing.gov.uk.

The police and other services will be collating reported texts and emails, and when they come from the same source, as they do on many occasions, they will act swiftly to shut it down

We also continue to encourage anyone who has been a targeted by a scam to report it. Action Fraud is the central police reporting point for all victims of fraud and can be contacted by phone on 0300 123 2040 or through their website: http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/report_fraud