Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the amount of financial fraud in the UK.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes estimates on the volume of fraud against adult individuals in the Crime in England and Wales quarterly releases [1].

The ONS estimated that in the year ending March 2021 there were approximately 4.6 m fraud offences against adults in England and Wales.

The ONS also publishes, as part of its data on crime, the total number of fraud offences that are referred to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) by industry bodies (UK finance and CIFAS) or recorded by Action Fraud each year. In the year ending March 2021, 806,637 cases were referred to the NFIB or recorded by Action Fraud. The ONS also provide a breakdown of this data by fraud type. For example, there were 393,068 cases of banking and credit industry fraud reported and 20,260 cases of financial investment fraud [2].

The Home Office has estimated that the total cost of fraud to individuals in England and Wales in 2015/2016 was £4.7bn [3]. They also estimated that the economic cost of organised fraud against businesses and the public sector in the UK was £5.9bn [4].

[1] Crime in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

[2] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/crimeinenglandandwalesappendixtables

[3] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/732110/the-economic-and-social-costs-of-crime-horr99.pdf

[4] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/782656/understanding-organised-crime-mar16-horr103-2nd.pdf