Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to increase (a) funding and (b) staffing for public agencies responsible for investigating (i) fraud and (ii) economic crime.

We recognise the financial and emotional impacts that fraud, and wider economic crime, can have. The Home Office does not hold a specific figure on the annual cost of fraud to the economy, however, the estimated total cost of fraud to society was £6.8bn in 2019/20 (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64539087faf4aa0012e132cb/Fraud_Strategy_2023.pdf).

We remain fully committed to attracting and retaining the necessary talent in our workforce to crack down on economic crime, including fraud. In FY2025/26, the Home Office is allocating over £160m to public agencies, including law enforcement, to tackle economic crime. Allocations for the next Spending Review period (FY2026/27 onwards) will be confirmed in due course.

The newly established National Fraud Squad (NFS) includes 400 new specialist posts led by the National Economic Crime Centre and City of London Police (CoLP). The NFS is transforming the law enforcement response to fraud, by taking a proactive, intelligence-led approach to identifying and disrupting the most serious fraudsters, domestically and overseas, to prevent frauds from reaching victims.

We are also working with CoLP (in their role as National Lead Force for fraud) to support forces in overseeing wider policing’s activity on fraud, promoting best practice, sharing intelligence, providing training, and holding forces to account on delivery. CoLP continues to push for the prioritisation of fraud within police forces, and influence leadership within local forces to increase dedicated resource towards the fraud threat.