Combat Fraud
Conservative · what the evidence says
An independent, source-checked look at Conservative’s policy “Combat Fraud” — what it would actually do across the things that affect your life. Every claim below quotes the source behind it. How this works.
Crime, justice & national security — Helps
minor · moderate confidence
Banning SIM farms and cold calls on financial products, alongside the National Fraud Squad, should reduce the volume of scam messages and fraudulent calls that fuel the UK's biggest crime category. The measures raise barriers for criminals but are unlikely to stop determined fraudsters entirely, and their real-world scale of impact is uncertain.
The evidence
- The policy commits to banning SIM farms and cold calls on financial products and building on the National Fraud Squad. — conservatives.com (manifesto) — “banning SIM farms and cold calls on financial products, building on the work of the National Fraud Squad”
- Banning SIM farms is expected to make it significantly harder for criminals to send mass scam texts, reducing volume received by the public. — gov.uk (media) — “The ban on SIM farms is intended to make it significantly harder for criminals to send mass scam texts, thereby reducing the volume of such messages received by the public”
- The ban raises the barrier of entry for criminals, potentially leading to fewer scam texts. — assets.publishing.service.gov.uk (government) — “This raises the "barrier of entry" for criminals, potentially leading to fewer scam texts”
- Some respondents felt the SIM farm ban might not be extensive enough to completely stop fraudsters exploiting telecoms networks. — assets.publishing.service.gov.uk (government) — “the ban, while helpful, might not be extensive enough to completely stop fraudsters from exploiting telecommunications networks”
- The government's broader fraud strategy aims to reduce fraud by 10% on 2019 levels by 2025. — fstech.co.uk (media) — “aiming to reduce fraud by 10% on 2019 levels by 2025”
- The National Fraud Squad is backed by 400 new specialist investigators and £100 million in new funding. — moneyweek.com (media) — “The NFS is backed by 400 new specialist investigators”
Biggest unknown: Whether fraudsters will simply shift to alternative channels not covered by the bans, limiting the net reduction in fraud victimisation.
Our reading: Fraud is the dominant crime type in England and Wales by volume, affecting millions of people and causing both financial and health harms. The policy targets two concrete infrastructure points — SIM farms used for mass scam texts and unsolicited cold calls on financial products — that evidence links directly to large-scale fraud operations. Banning SIM farms raises barriers to entry for criminals and gives law enforcement new tools to dismantle fraud infrastructure. The cold calls ban targets a channel that evidence shows is heavily exploited for investment and financial scams. These are committed legislative instruments, not aspirational language, so the soft-verb rule does not apply. The National Fraud Squad provides an institutional backbone with real resource. However, the magnitude is capped as minor rather than moderate because: determined fraudsters are likely to adapt to alternative channels not covered by the bans; the SIM farm ban was itself flagged in consultation as potentially insufficient to stop network exploitation; and the overall fraud problem is vast (£1.2 billion stolen in 2024 alone) relative to what these specific measures can address. Absent the policy, the status quo infrastructure for mass scam messaging remains freely available, so there is genuine additionality — but the counterfactual gap is modest given telecoms operators are already blocking over a billion suspected scam messages annually. On balance, the policy delivers a real but limited improvement to O5 over this parliament.