Although many older people are not and do not consider themselves to be vulnerable, they can often be perceived as an easy target for criminals. To address this, the CPS has committed to refreshing its legal guidance and public statement on crimes against older people within the next year.
We all have constituents and relatives, elderly people, who are the victims of telephone scams. This is a particularly horrible form of crime where people pretend to be banks and it causes acute distress. Often the police shuffle off responsibility to Action Fraud, so can we have real action on this and real resources committed to it?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue and I commend financial institutions such as Nationwide that have already created much more secure specialist phone lines for elderly people and, in particular, for carers for those who are unwell, to conduct their transactions. That is an excellent example of how the financial services sector can drive and design out this type of fraud.