Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps her Department is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that people with autism and learning disabilities are protected from financial fraud.

We know that fraudsters will use any means they can, including through highly deceptive and sophisticated techniques, to trick people into handing over their hard-earned money. We recognise that for the most vulnerable this can be particularly stressful and damaging however, we are focused on stopping unscrupulous fraudsters in their tracks and supporting victims so they can recover and protect themselves going forward.

Raising awareness and safeguarding victims will form a key part of the Government’s forthcoming fraud strategy. We are already taking concrete steps to protect the most vulnerable victims:

• We are working with industry to do more to protect victims from fraud. We have re-launched the Joint Fraud Taskforce (JFT) which brings together the public and private sectors to combat fraud and agreed voluntary sector charters with the banking, telecommunications and accountancy sectors that among other things have resulted in less scam messages reaching victims.
• We continue to support the National Trading Standards on the roll out of call blocking devices to vulnerable people and the National Economic Crime Centre have recently provided further funding for the delivery of additional devices. These devices have helped to provide protection against nuisance and scam calls.

We have established the Victims of Fraud Working Group which works to bring together key stakeholders from law enforcement, victim support services and the private sector to create a forum to discuss the victim support landscape, share best practice, close vulnerabilities in the system and ensure that victims of fraud and cyber crime are consistently receiving the right level of support.