Here’s how the government can tackle the UK’s fraud problem

To deal with a problem as entrenched and endemic as this requires vision and leadership at a political level – and for this vision to be backed by significant investment, writes Helena Wood

Successive governments have let this threat spiral out of control (Getty/iStock)

If a new crime were to emerge overnight that indiscriminately targeted millions of people in their homes every year, leading to real physical and mental harms – and, in some cases, even death – we’d all expect a sizeable and commensurate government and policing response.

The crime I describe, however, is not new and has been with us for some time: fraud. The recently released Crime Survey for England and Wales estimated that there were 3.7 million incidents of fraud in the year running to September 2022, making this the crime British adults are more likely to fall victim to than any other.

Yet despite innumerable cases being highlighted on a daily basis of innocent individuals falling victim to increasingly sophisticated fraud and scams – in many cases leading to financial ruin and sometimes even suicide – successive governments have let this threat spiral out of control, allowing the UK to emerge as the fraud capital of the world, costing the UK economy an estimated £137bn per year.