Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps his Department is taking to tackle SMS text scams.

Under the Telecommunications Charter, the sector has introduced firewalls that detect and stop scam texts from reaching customers. The firewalls have stopped 800 million scam text messages since January 2022.

Following consultation, we have introduced a new offence in the Criminal Justice Bill for the supply and possession of SIM farms, technical devices that allow criminals to send scam texts to thousands of people.