Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are the number of cases and value of frauds involving cheque books in the UK, in each of the last five years for which figures are available.

The Home Office does not hold the information requested. The Home Office collects data from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) on the number of recorded fraud offences in England and Wales. This includes data on cheque, plastic card and online bank account fraud. From these data, it is not possible to separate out cheque fraud, as all cheque, plastic card and online bank account offences are classed on one category (NFIB5A) under the Home Office Counting Rules.

These data, which are published by the ONS, are available on their website at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice#datasets (see ‘Crime in England and Wales: Appendix tables’ – Table A5).

Additionally, Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) collate data from their members via a system known as CAMIS. However, they only refer crimes to the NFIB in cases where there is actionable intelligence to share with the police to aid fraud investigation. These are the statistics presented in Table A5 (referred to above). The wider CAMIS data, which separates cheque fraud from other fraud, are also published by the ONS, are available on their website at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice#datasets (see ‘Crime in England and Wales: Bulletin tables’ – Table F20).