Fraud Strategy 2026-29
House of Commons · Westminster Hall · 7 Jul 2026 · 12 speeches · Official Report
I beg to move, That this House has considered the potential merits of increasing fraud protections and the Fraud Strategy 2026 to 2029. It is a pleasure to lead this debate with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris, and I thank the Minister for being here. Fraud has been spreading like the plague for years, infecting almost every aspect of daily life: online, on the phone, at work or out and about. People do not know who or what to trust. Fraud costs the UK economy more than £1 billion a year, yet sentencing is well below its 2010 level. In 2025, British consumers lost £1.2 billion to fraud-a four-year high. What does that rise mean? My constituent’s small business in Ilton was scammed out of more than £3,000worth of orders through a credit card scam, wiping out their business. Another constituent’s elderly mother had debts run up by an estranged relative, who used her details to the extent that bailiffs came round. Another constituent was tricked into investing hundreds of thousands of pounds into a building company that then shut down. Lots of constituents have been defrauded out of thousands of pounds by tradespeople for half-done work or work that never actually happened.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. My constituents have similar concerns about the impact of fraud, especially on vulnerable people. I have spoken to the noble Lord Hanson, who has been developing the strategy, to outline those concerns. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the direction in the new UK fraud strategy, the expansion of the “Stop! Think Fraud” campaign and the promotion of proactive policing are good things that should be welcomed?
They are good things and I will come on to them later, but we do need more support for vulnerable adults and young people-something I will also come on to.
We need to get a balance. I spoke to the hon. Gentleman beforehand, and we must be incredibly careful not to let the state overreach in the process. Does he agree that a law-abiding citizen should be able to walk into their local bank and spend, withdraw or transfer their own hard-earned money without being treated like a criminal suspect? We must ensure that the fraud strategy does not become a nanny-state charter that forces ordinary people to prove to a bank clerk why they want to spend their own money.
I agree with some of what the hon. Gentleman said, and I will come on to talk about why banks should have more face-to-face contact with people instead of sending them online. It is even simple, little things. One constituent was scammed into paying a clean air zone charge, which does not exist, because it popped up on a sponsored page on Google. Another agreed to send Amazon vouchers to their elderly mother, but they actually sent them to a scammer. In April, in response to this problem, the Government came forward with the 2026 to 2029 fraud strategy. They have committed £250 million to the plan over the next three years. There is a lot to welcome in the strategy, particularly the establishment of the fraud victims charter and the new Report Fraud scheme to replace Action Fraud, which was totally useless.
I will make my intervention very quick, Mrs Harris. Unfortunately, Police Scotland and the Scottish Government have not opted to join the Report Fraud scheme. That means that my constituents do not benefit from it. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that they should make progress in joining it?
I totally agree that Scotland should join, because we should work together against fraudsters, not in isolation or silos. Short of catching the fraudsters themselves, my constituents who were defrauded provided every scrap of evidence that they or their businesses could, but they were all told by Action Fraud that there was no line of inquiry. I welcome the strong start on international co-operation and the introduction of an online crime centre, a new abuse taskforce and more data-driven policing. If properly supported, that work could help us to take a proactive approach to addressing the types of fraud that my constituents were victims of. Will the Minister look into whether the cases that Action Fraud failed to follow up can be reopened with those new systems in place? Lots of my constituents are still out of pocket. Despite that, there are still some real challenges with the strategy. The big question is whether, given the scale of the problem, £250 million is enough. Will we be able to afford the technology and the workforce to keep up with fraudsters? Is the strategy fully costed, or will we find ourselves in a situation like that of the defence investment plan, for which the money just is not enough? I know for a fact that we do not have enough police officers to do outreach to all the people vulnerable to fraud in Yeovil and south Somerset. Given that we are losing billions to fraud, surely it would be a smart move to invest a bit more in fighting it. The expansion...
It is a great pleasure to be in this Chamber with you in the Chair, Mrs Harris. I congratulate the hon. Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) on securing the debate. I also thank him for how he has set out some of the very difficult problems that all our constituents have faced as technology has provided the wherewithal to industrialise frauds and scams, often from abroad. There is now no way to get a handle on what they are doing without involving ourselves in international co-operation. As technologies advance, the threat of these kinds of activities evolves, and we have to do what we can to try to keep pace with them and hopefully get ahead, so that we can do some prevention rather than trying to pick up the pieces after terrible things have happened. At this juncture, I express my empathy and sympathy with the hon. Member’s constituents, some of whom he has mentioned today, including Christopher, who was the subject of a romance fraud, and Jason, who was subjected to fraudulent behaviour and the temptation of wealth creation that was not really there. One thing that has struck me very strongly since I took up this post three weeks ago, and from my own constituency caseload over many years, is how invidious and difficult it is for the victims of these kinds of behaviours to admit that they have fallen into a trap, because many of them feel a bit silly and embarrassed and do not know where to turn to try to get redress. The way that redress has worked in this country in the past...
I thank the Minister for her answers. Does she agree that we should fully regulate the property training industry? That is a huge issue across the whole country and affects lots of people. As the Minister rightly said a second ago, people do not come forward because they are embarrassed, which is also why, unfortunately, they take their own lives.
We need to look at where the issues are, where the loopholes are and where people are being exploited. We need to see what we can do, both as law enforcers and as regulators, to close those loopholes. I am not going to say yes immediately to the hon. Gentleman’s question, not least because it is not directly in my bivouac, but he can rest assured that we will look at the trends and see how we can harden the target, if I might put it that way. A whole range of individuals can be scammed and fall for very sophisticated frauds without realising-and by the time they do realise, it is too late. Obviously the private sector, specifically the banking sector, has an important part to play with the warnings that it puts on its electronic banking systems. We need to do an enormous amount of co-operative work in all this, to ensure that our online crime centre can pick up and collaborate with all parts of the system that is there to try to protect people. As I said earlier, “Stop! Think Fraud” is an important part of that. If something looks too good to be true online, it almost certainly is. We have to get that education out there, be it through influencers or other types of people, to the people who are potential victims in this area.
On banking, one of the biggest issues for Christopher was that his carer was turned away by Lloyds many times and sent online. We often see that issue because banks are shutting and we have banking hubs. Does the Minister agree that the banks should work more with people with neurodiversity and disabilities and work more to see those people face to face? There should also be more support in our banking hubs.
The banking hubs are at an early stage of their development. They are a good development. At the moment, they are less sophisticated in the services that they can offer. We have to work with banks, which are-because most of their customers wish it-going online and leaving the high street. That does leave in a more vulnerable situation people who perhaps are more vulnerable to being scammed online. In our work with the banks, we have to try to make the case that they need to have special relationships and ways of dealing with those who are neurodiverse or who may be easier, in some ways, to fool. In my experience, almost anyone can become a victim of this kind of fraud if they get caught at a vulnerable moment or when they are upset about something, so we have to deal with education in a much more holistic way, rather than just categorising people. But I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. Using data from Report Fraud, we are improving our ability to identify emerging fraud trends and local fraud hotspots, which enables us to work with police forces and community partners to deliver targeted interventions where we see they are needed most. We are just beginning to get to the stage at which we can start spotting these kinds of trends and trying to prevent them, rather than trying to pick up the pieces after a fraud has happened. It is equally important to co-ordinate the fraud protect networks, for which City of London police has responsibility. Bringing together local,...