During the Committee Stage of the Crime and Policing Bill in the House of Lords, peers proposed substantive amendments to test whether the Government will place additional responsibilities on telecoms and digital providers to tackle fraud, cyber-enabled crime, and scam activity. The Committee Stage is where legislation is scrutinised line by line, and changes agreed at this point can materially shape the final Act, making this a key moment for sectors affected.
A central debate focused on Amendment 358, tabled by Lord Vaux of Harrowden, which sought to extend the Bill’s controls on “SIM farms” to cover virtual SIMs (eSIMs) as well as physical SIM cards. Lord Vaux, supported by other peers, warned that fraudsters are moving away from physical SIMs, so legislation limited to plastic SIMs risks being obsolete from the outset. He raised concerns about the ease of acquiring large volumes of UK phone numbers and questioned whether current know-your-customer (KYC) and number sub-allocation practices are robust enough, particularly when numbers pass through multiple layers of providers.
Lord Vaux also revisited who should bear the financial cost of scams, noting that providers sit early in the fraud chain and could share responsibility for reimbursement alongside banks and other platforms. CCUK has previously engaged with Lord Vaux and other peers on telecoms-enabled fraud and reimbursement, briefing them on work under the first Fraud Charter, intelligence sharing, and technical blocking measures. The Bill and forthcoming fraud strategy will continue to be monitored for any moves to extend reimbursement duties onto communications providers.
The debate questioned whether existing voluntary measures, including the Second Telecommunications Fraud Charter, are sufficient, and whether enforceable requirements on telecoms providers might eventually be needed, especially where activity originates overseas.
Responding on behalf of the Government, Fraud Minister Lord Hanson of Flint resisted the amendment, citing physical SIM farms as the most immediate and proven risk. He confirmed ministers will monitor sector performance closely, powers exist to expand the SIM farm definition via secondary legislation, and the forthcoming fraud strategy will include stronger international action and continued scrutiny of telecoms-enabled fraud. Lord Vaux and his supported peers: Baroness Morgan, and Lord Young ultimately withdrew the amendment, but the debate signals growing pressure in the Lords to future-proof legislation and scrutinise communications providers’ role in preventing scam activity.
Other Committee discussions highlighted the wider digital crime context. Peers proposed a statutory “freight crime code,” debated responsibilities for mobile phone theft and cloud providers, called for a bespoke offence for digital identity theft as part of the wider fraud landscape, and pressed for statutory defences for legitimate cybersecurity research under the Computer Misuse Act. Ministers emphasised existing legal tools, voluntary initiatives, and ongoing reviews, but peers pressed for future-facing legislative frameworks and clearer responsibilities on private sector actors whose infrastructure and services are used in fraud and cybercrime.
Voluntary measures across telecoms, cybersecurity, and tech-enabled crime are under increasing scrutiny, with charters, guidance, and informal expectations being judged against outcomes such as fraud volumes and victim experience. Companies are expected to use the levers they control to disrupt crime, including numbering policies, routing controls, KYC, device identifiers, and access controls. Government highlighted existing powers to extend definitions by secondary legislation, signalling that statutory action could follow quickly if voluntary measures prove insufficient.