Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had discussions with (a) O2, (b) Vodafone, (c) EE and (d) other mobile network providers on tackling (i) SMS and (ii) calls-based scams; and whether she has plans to introduce stronger safeguards to protect consumers from mobile fraud.

We work extremely closely with mobile network providers, regulators, law enforcement and consumer groups to close the vulnerabilities that criminals exploit, and stop scam messages and calls reaching the UK public.

We are currently developing a second Telecommunications Fraud Charter to build on previous success, and go further in identifying, preventing and disrupting this type of fraud.