Labour plans ban on global scammers’ spoof phone calls to UK
Labour has pledged a crackdown on global scammers who call UK phone numbers to con people out of their money, and criticised the government for a five-month delay in producing a new fraud strategy.
The shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, said Suella Braverman, the home secretary, had said the strategy would be published “shortly” exactly five months ago. Thornberry said that 1.5m offences would have been committed in England and Wales in that time.
The announcement comes as Labour seeks to move on from a damaging row over a Labour advertisement which claimed that the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, did not believe adults convicted of sexually assaulting children should go to prison.
The advert, which has caused internal splits, was part of a series on the Tory record on crime after a push on law and order campaigning last week. The Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will move the campaign on to the economy and cost of living this week.
Thornberry’s drive to highlight the government’s record on fraud seeks to bridge that campaign with crime and the cost of living.
Labour is proposing a total ban on “spoofing” UK numbers from overseas, plus a block on mobile calls from abroad using UK numbers unless the network provider confirms the user is roaming. Number spoofing occurs when scammers change their caller ID to disguise their identity from the person they are ringing, often making it look as if they are calling from the UK.
Labour said it anticipated pushback from industries that relied on overseas call centres, particularly in India, which handle genuine customer service requests. The party said Ofcom should register those companies and their numbers as exceptions, and block all
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