Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Safeguarding ()Modern slavery is an
abhorrent crime. Tens of millions of victims around the world are
coerced, deceived, and forced into a life of abuse, servitude,
and inhumane treatment.
This happens in the UK as well; to British citizens and to those
trafficked from abroad. Today, on the UK’s Anti-Slavery Day, we
pause to reflect on the trauma that victims suffer, the cruelty
of those that exploit them and the bravery of survivors
attempting to rebuild their lives.
This Government is committed to eradicating modern slavery. Over
the past year we have continued to work towards this aim with our
partners in the Devolved Administrations, in law enforcement and
across the criminal justice system, with local government and our
health and welfare sectors, with our international partners, with
business, civil society, and academia.
Together we have continued to identify and provide support to
thousands of victims of modern slavery through our contract with
the Salvation Army. The number of law enforcement investigations
has continued to increase. Conviction rates for cases prosecuted
through the courts have also increased.
The Independent Child Trafficking Guardian Service now covers in
total two thirds of all local authorities across England and
Wales; a key milestone to better support child victims delivered
through our National Referral Mechanism Transformation Programme.
The HO has invested a further £1.4m this year to support the
police modern slavery response, bringing the total investment to
£15m since 2016. This funding has helped to drive the increase in
modern slavery investigations and operations.
And during our G7 Presidency, G7 members agreed to joint action
on forced labour in global supply chains and reaffirmed their
commitment to upholding human rights and international labour
standards. Modern slavery and human trafficking is a global
problem and we continue to provide global leadership to tackle
it.
We are committed to driving greater transparency in supply chains
to ensure the private and public sectors use their leverage to
tackle the risks of modern slavery in the goods and services they
procure and provide. In March this year we launched the
Government registry of modern slavery statements on GOV.UK to
enhance transparency. Statements covering over 21,000
organisations have now been added to the registry.
This Government continues to lead by example. We have continued
to progress work on public procurement that we committed to in
the world’s first Government modern slavery statement that we
published in March 2020. And we will soon publish further detail
of the actions Government Departments have taken to prevent
modern slavery in their supply chains.
We have continued to fund the Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence
Centre to improve the evidence base on modern slavery and to help
inform our policy response. And the Government has recently
launched the Modern Slavery Prevention Fund to test and develop
innovative approaches to preventing modern slavery in the first
place, aiming to stop this harm before it starts.
Tomorrow, our landmark Nationality and Borders Bill will progress
to Committee stage in the House of Commons, and the modern
slavery measures in this Bill will seek to bring clarity for
decision makers and victims, and maintain our commitment to
ensuring victims of modern slavery are identified and supported
as early as possible.
These actions demonstrate the Government’s relentless commitment
to addressing this crime. We will soon provide further detail in
our annual report on modern slavery.
But we are not complacent. The nature of modern slavery continues
to evolve. We have committed to publish a new Government strategy
for modern slavery next year to ensure we continue to lead the
way with our partners in bringing an end to this crime.
