Fraud

(asked on 19th July 2021) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle fraud and economic crime.


Answered by
Kit Malthouse Portrait
Kit Malthouse
This question was answered on 26th July 2021

This Government is committed to protecting people from all types of fraud and pursuing those who perpetuate these crimes wherever possible. It is for this reason that as part of the 2020 Spending Review, the Government committed a further £63m to the Home Office to tackle economic crime, including fraud. In May, we published a Statement of Progress on the Economic Crime Plan which committed to developing a comprehensive Fraud Action Plan. This will outline how we plan to further strengthen how we combat fraud and will be published after the 2021 Spending Review.

As part of the Police Uplift Programme to recruit an additional 20,000 officers by 2023, we have prioritised more investigators in the City of London Police to fulfil their role as a world class fraud specialist force. We have also channelled additional officer resource into the Regional Organised Crime Unit network to work on a host of serious and organised crime threats including fraud.

We have also been working closely alongside the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) who launched their Suspicious Email Reporting Service last year. This system has proved an instant success with the public, with over 6.5 million reports received and the removal of over 50,500 scams and 97,500 websites taken down since its inception in April 2020.

We also continue to encourage anyone who has been a targeted by fraud 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. This information is being used by law enforcement partners, alongside crime reports to identify, disrupt and stop fraudsters.

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