Starmer says the Cabinet is turning a ‘blind eye to scammers’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said Boris Johnson’s Cabinet is “turning a blind eye to scammers”.
Speaking in the Commons, he said: “The Prime Minister’s answer has got a big hole in it. We’ve had lockdown for the last two years. Two crimes that people could commit were online fraud and throwing parties.
“As far as I can see, the numbers for both of those have gone through the roof.”
He added: “But I was asking the Prime Minister about the 14,000 cases of fraud a day, many older people duped out of hard earned savings, and the Business Secretary casually suggests on TV ‘don’t worry, it’s not real crime’.
“There’s a crime gang in Manchester nicking cars and shipping them around the world, all financed by Covid loans from the taxpayer. And what’s the Chancellor’s response? Write off £4 billion in losses and and blocking an investigation by the National Crime Agency.
“His Cabinet turning a blind eye to scammers – is it any wonder that his anti-fraud minister realised no one in Government seemed to care and threw in the towel?”
The Prime Minister replied: “We’re investing more into in tackling fraud but we’re also tackling the neighbourhood crime that is of such massive psychological damage to people in this country. Tackling knife crime, tackling burglary, tackling crimes of violence in the street, with tougher sentences, which they voted against, by the way.
“And putting more police out on the street, and the reason we’re able to afford it is because we have a strong economy and we are coming back strongly from Covid, and that’s thanks to the big calls this Government got right.”
