Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clauses 6 and 7 stand part.

Government amendment 47.

Schedule 1.

As Members will be aware, criminals often use telecommunications networks to target people to try and defraud them, for example with scam texts and scam calls. In fact, the secretary of my local residents association in Coulsdon, in my constituency of Croydon South, sent me a message just this morning with an example of a scam text that she had just received, purporting to come from the Royal Mail and inviting her to click on a link and fill in her details. This is clearly a problem.

I am sure that we have all heard such examples; indeed, we have probably received messages ourselves. Although most people can identify them as scams trying to elicit fraud, unfortunately some people who receive them are taken in, because the messages can often be quite realistic, and often they end up losing significant amounts of money.

Very often, these scam texts can be traced back to so-called “SIM farms”, which are electronic devices that sometimes hold hundreds of physical SIM cards that can be used to send out thousands and thousands of scam text messages in a matter of seconds. These devices are relatively easy to buy and—until this Bill passes into law—they are legal to buy online, enabling criminals to commit large-scale fraud by abusing our telecommunications network. In the fraud strategy, we committed to stopping that, which is why we are legislating.

We consulted on these proposals in May 2023 and received broad support for these measures. There were some concerns about the definitions being too broad, such that they would inadvertently criminalise some legitimate activity, but we have worked to develop the legislation in order to address those concerns.

On that particular point about possession of a SIM farm, the Bill says that a person charged with an offence under the clause must provide “good reason”. It goes on to state what the good reasons are, for example providing broadcasting services. However, I would have assumed that a broadcasting service would be already licensed; similarly, if a body is operating a genuine public transport service, it is probably a local authority. Could the Minister explain that “good reason” a bit more? It seems a bit woolly or wide to me. Somebody who is clever enough to run a SIM farm would be clever enough to find a way around that somehow. I want to support the Government in advancing their proposal, but is it possible to tighten it up a bit more?

The hon. Member raises a concern that inventive criminals might exploit the defences we set out in clause 5(3), on lines 37 to 40 at the bottom of page 3, which he was quoting from. He is concerned that criminals might find a way of pretending or purporting to offer, for example, legitimate broadcasting services when in fact they do not. I think that a court would take a view on legitimate broadcasting services. If there was a prosecution and a criminal advanced that defence, it would be up to the jury to decide whether the broadcasting services really were legitimate.

Since the hon. Member has raised the point, I will happily take it away and see whether there are any concerns that the clause might inadvertently provide a loophole for ingenious or inventive criminals. I will seek to satisfy myself that that is not the case, but if he has identified a problem or potential loophole, I will happily come back to the Committee. I will take that away as a point to double check. We can probably rely on juries, or magistrates in a magistrates court trial, to apply common sense to those defences, but it is good that he raised the question and I will certainly look into it.

On that point, it is possible for scammers to intercept texts that come from a credible bank, so they can slot in a text in the line of communication between a person and their credible bank. Have the Government given any thought as to how we can stop that happening? I feel it makes us even more vulnerable.

That sort of interception and insertion is not addressed by this clause, which is about SIM farms and the almost industrial-scale transmission of thousands of messages. What the hon. Lady is describing is a little different. It can happen to emails as well. For example, if someone is about to buy a house, they may be corresponding with their solicitor. When the solicitor tells them to transfer the funds to X bank account, a criminal can insert themselves into the email chain, pretending to be the solicitor, and put in a message telling the client to send the funds to their own bank instead of the solicitor’s client account. Inserting messages into an email chain happens quite a bit, but that is not what this clause is designed to address. The Security Minister, my right hon. Friend Tom Tugendhat, is very aware of the issue because it falls into his portfolio rather than mine. Perhaps I could ask his officials to write to the hon. Lady to update her on the work he is doing with law enforcement on that point, because this clause just does not address it.

Turning back to the group of clauses, it is worth saying that these offences will make it difficult—I hope impossible—for criminals to access and use SIM farms for the purposes of fraud, and the police will be given the tools that they need to disrupt them. Clauses 5 and 6 ban the possession and supply of a SIM farm. However, as I have already said in response to the hon. Member for Bootle, if a person has good reason or lawful authority, obviously that is not criminalised. We have talked a bit about the legitimate use issue already, and there are some examples provided in clause 5, as we have discussed.

I will turn to amendment 47 to schedule 1. Schedule 1 confers powers of entry, search and seizure in relation to these offences. There is an offence of intentionally obstructing a constable when they are carrying out a search—the search is to be unimpeded, obviously . That offence also needs to apply in the case of people who are exercising the power of a constable, such as designated National Crime Agency officers, who are not necessarily constables. Amendment 47 to schedule 1 is a technical amendment that makes sure that all the relevant people can exercise this power of search: not just constables, but any person who is exercising the power of a constable. It is a technical amendment, making sure that it applies to everybody undertaking those searches to hopefully find and prosecute criminals who are using SIM farms. On that basis, I commend these provisions to the Committee.

Fraud is an everyday, large-scale fact of life in this country. According to the crime survey, there were 3.7 million instances of fraud in England and Wales in 2022. Fraud now represents 40% of all crimes. It is an everyday peril that all of us face and from which vulnerable people are clearly at risk.

Furthermore, the National Crime Agency estimates that 86% of fraud goes unreported. That means that victims are unsupported and vital evidence that could break some of the fraud rings goes uncollected. We have to do better and build confidence among the public that fraud is not just a fact of life but that, if they report it, something will happen.

We have to push back on the idea—I hope that the Minister will be very clear about this in his response—that, to some degree, fraud is a lesser crime. When citing the statistics on crime reduction that the Minister cited in his opening speech, about which people say, “Yes, but you have not counted fraud in that”, we have heard other Ministers say—although I do not think we have heard this Minister say it—“Well, fraud is not quite the same as those crimes. It is a lesser crime. It doesn’t feel quite as bad”. That is wrong, and I hope that the Minister will say, on the record, that that is not the view of the Government.

I call Alex Norris.

I want to give an example to illustrate exactly what my hon. Friend is saying. My neighbour across the road, who is sadly now deceased, had a number of instances where a person was calling her—from her bank, apparently—to persuade her to move funds to different accounts because they were “checking their security”. She was ready to do that and, had it not been for an alert taxi driver, she would have transferred several thousand pounds from one bank account to another, the latter of those being that of a fraudster. For me, that is a tremendous crime. I think the amount was £6,000. Does that not best illustrate what my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North is saying to the Minister?

I am getting my Alexes mixed up. My apologies to Alex Cunningham; I now call Alex Norris.

If I were to open my social media accounts now, I think that I would find myself called an awful lot worse than Alex Cunningham, so I have no problem with that at all.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North is absolutely right, though. That sort of action can ruin lives. And it can destroy a business. I probably should not be relying on “Coronation Street” for my arguments, but there is a good storyline about that at the moment. It can ruin a business. We know that there is vulnerability there. For an individual, losing that sort of sum of money—£6,000—could ruin their life. It could jeopardise their housing situation, and it can jeopardise relationships, too—we have seen that happen in the past—so it is very serious. It knocks people’s confidence as well; it makes people not want to engage with others. This is just as important as other crimes, and it is really important that we send out that message.

Part of the reason for the success that criminals have is that they can do mass-scale phishing. That means that, while there are things that we all receive and think, “Well, that’s a pretty crude scam. Who is going to fall for that?”, we know that trying crude and rudimentary things over and over again on a mass scale can, on a long enough timeline, succeed.

That is before we get to the incredibly sophisticated methods that my hon. Friend the Member for Bootle mentioned, and I welcome the response that the Minister gave on that. There is a difference. The Minister mentioned his constituent and Royal Mail. Most of the time, I would look at the link and say, “Well, that’s not Royal Mail.” I would ignore it and move on. But, if I was expecting something from Royal Mail, I cannot tell you with 100% certainty that I would do that. That is the case not least because we always want what is coming: “Where is it? Come on, I’m ready for it.” I can easily see how that mistake can be made, and that mistake could have a profound and long-term impact on someone’s life. It is only possible to do that because of technology that allows relentless and repeated communication attempts, and we know that so-called SIM farms are the way that that is done.

We support the aim behind clause 5 of making an offence of the possession of a SIM farm. I have reservations about the utility of subsection (2), but we have probably tested that debate to destruction. The point that was made about “good reason” was really good. I am slightly uncomfortable with the Minister’s response that the court will set that; I think we could do that. There are legitimate, although deeply irritating, marketing purposes for that degree of communication—it is for others to say how effective it is. Even political parties engage in it sometimes, so bulk text messages are not without precedent. It feels like we can tighten up the clause to specify who can use these things and to what purpose. Again, there will be edge cases that fall between the marketing of a bad product and the marketing of a fraudulent product. There is a difference between those things. People have a right to advertise a product that is not very good. We would not want to consumer it, use it or buy it, but they can do that. That would be at the edge of the cases we are talking about here, so we need greater clarity, and perhaps the Government can tighten that up before Report.

Clause 7 introduces schedule 1, which is amended by Government amendment 47. The schedule relates to the offence of obstructing a person in their endeavours to investigate possible offences under clauses 5 and 6. The effect of the amendment is that a person cannot obstruct someone other than a constable as that search warrant is being executed. Again, we do not have a problem with that—people need to comply with the provisions of the law—but we need a bit more clarity. I do not say this to be smart; I just want to understand it. The Minister characterises this as a technical amendment, which is a term of art in this place. Was there a drafting error or does it genuinely not change the substance of this provision? I do not think the intention is for lots and lots of people to have the ability to exercise these powers. It is tightly defined, and those who are not constables who can do this will be accompanied by a constable, but we could do with a bit more clarity.

Finally on this topic, part of the challenge we face is that although some of these enterprises will be set up in this country, they can also be set up and executed from other nations that have weaker arrangements than we will have, assuming this legislation passes. Will the Minister tell us about the conversations the Government are having with European and global partners about this, and give us some information about where the hotspots are so that there is greater public awareness?

Let me respond to one or two of the issues that the shadow Minister quite reasonably raised.

Fraud makes up about 40% of all criminal offences—the figure I have in my mind is 41%. The hon. Gentleman is right that it is incredibly serious, and I have certainly never suggested anything to the contrary. It can devastate people’s lives. People who have worked hard over a lifetime building up their life savings to fund their retirement or their children’s education can suddenly have them taken from them in very distressing circumstances, so there is no question but that fraud is an extremely serious crime. The Government take it extremely seriously, which is why there is a fraud action plan, backed with investment—we recently provided over £100 million of extra money.

I was one of the Ministers through whose hands the Online Safety Act 2023 passed during its extremely lengthy gestation. It will have a significant effect by requiring the large social media platforms to proactively take steps to prevent fraud. Some of them have already done that voluntarily, and there have been big reductions in the amount of online-originated fraud, so this is a huge priority.

The simple reason we do not include fraud when comparing the overall crime figures to 2010 is that it got picked up by the crime survey for England and Wales, alongside computer misuse, only in about 2016. If the figures going back to 2010 existed, we would obviously include them. When we talk about a 56% reduction in crime since 2010 to on a like-for-like basis, which I am sure I will be referring to once or twice in the next year, it excludes fraud and computer misuse only because they were not in that series of figures.

Will the Minister give way?

I will in a moment. When we compare the crime figures since 2016, we see that overall crime has fallen. For example, overall crime including fraud and computer misuse has fallen by 10% in the last year, which I am sure the shadow Minister is about to stand up and welcome.

I gently say that, in their attempts to create a picture of community safety—which is not what people feel—there is a problem in Government Ministers relying on statistics that they know to be incomplete. There should be some reflection on the numbers cited. I understand the like-for-like point—that is true—but it is problematic to tell the public how much safer they are if that argument relies on excluding a significant and growing type of crime. That must be wrong.

It is not reliant on that. It is simply that the data does not exist. The chief inspector of constabulary Andy Cooke said in his state of policing report last June that we are arguably safer than we have ever been before. If we look at the crime types for which we do have continuous data going back to 2010 and before—such as burglary, robbery, the vehicle theft figures that the shadow Minister himself quoted recently, violent and seriously violent crime—we see that all of those individual crime types have fallen dramatically.

Will the Minister give way?

In a moment. Bicycle theft is down by 39%, vehicle crime by about 50%, and violent crime by around 50%. It is not the case that some sort of artifice going on and that if we added fraud, that would paint a different picture. Whichever crime type we look at, we see that it is going down according to the crime survey. We all know why police reported crime sometimes shows different trends. It is because the police are being driven by—we are getting a bit off topic here, so I am probably going to get told off in a minute.

I am going to call you to order if you carry on.

Yes. There is probably another time to debate this point, and perhaps now is a good moment to give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley.

I think I am at risk of offending you in the Chair, Dame Angela, but may I have the data for whether rape, child abuse or domestic violence have gone up or down?

Order.

I know the answer.

I have been quite lax because I prefer a free-wheeling debate in Committee. It is important that people are allowed to make arguments in a slightly wider way, but we still have to stay in order. I was happy to listen to the fraud debate, given the clauses we are debating, but let us get back to order.

Thank you, Dame Angela; you were extremely tolerant, but I could sense the frostiness beginning to build without even looking at you.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North, asked two more questions on this group, which I will answer very briefly. He asked for assurance that this technical amendment was not a smokescreen for some nefarious Government plot. The wording of Government amendment 47 is very clear, in that it just inserts the words,

“a person who has the powers of a constable”.

Therefore, it extends the powers of search only where that person has the powers of a constable, which of course is set out in legislation. I gave as an example certain employees of the National Crime Agency. This is not an open-ended provision—it is very specific and precisely defined in law as someone who already has the powers as a constable. We are not creating any new powers in the Bill, other than that those people who have the powers of a constable can conduct these searches.

The shadow Minister also asked about international co-operation, which is extremely important. My colleague the Security Minister works very closely with international partners—in fact, he is almost constantly travelling. There will be an international summit chaired by the Home Secretary later this year on the very topic of combating fraud, working closely with the Five Eyes and engaging bilaterally with the European Union and other key countries. There are various jurisdictions that tend to originate more of this fraud—Russia, for example—and the Security Minister in particular and the Home Secretary are working very closely on that. In order to avoid any further disapproval, Dame Angela, I think I have answered the questions.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 5 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 6 and 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.