Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton) We come to the Select
Committee statement on behalf of the Home Affairs Committee. Dame
Diana Johnson will speak for up to 10 minutes, during which no
interventions may be taken. At the conclusion of her statement, I
will call Members to ask questions on the subject of the statement.
These should be brief questions, not full speeches. I should also
emphasise that questions should be directed to the Select Committee
Chair, not to the...Request free trial
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
We come to the Select Committee statement on behalf of the Home
Affairs Committee. will speak for up to 10
minutes, during which no interventions may be taken. At the
conclusion of her statement, I will call Members to ask questions
on the subject of the statement. These should be brief questions,
not full speeches. I should also emphasise that questions should
be directed to the Select Committee Chair, not to the relevant
Minister, and that Front Benchers may take part in
questioning.
1.15pm
(Kingston upon Hull North)
(Lab)
Let me start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for
granting this time for a debate on the report from the Home
Affairs Select Committee on human trafficking, the first report
of the 2023-24 Session. Let me also thank and pay tribute to the
courage and bravery of the survivors who shared their views and
experiences with us as part of the inquiry, and express my
gratitude to the Committee Clerks, staff and advisers who
provided such excellent support.
This report puts paid to the idea that the UK is still a world
leader in combating human trafficking. It is not. A preoccupation
with small boat crossings and the Rwanda scheme has seen the
Government divert their focus and resources away from combating
human trafficking. The post of Independent Anti-Slavery
Commissioner was vacant for 18 months. The Home Office has not
published its annual report on human trafficking for two years,
and it has taken the Department two years to launch the new
stakeholder groups to engage with anti-trafficking
non-governmental organisations. The consequences of such
de-prioritisation and delays are disastrous for this country’s
response to human trafficking, undermining our ability to prevent
exploitation, prosecute perpetrators and protect victims.
Let me begin with prevention. Let us be clear: human trafficking
will continue to be attractive and extremely profitable to
criminals unless more is done to tackle the demand for the
criminality that it services. For example, there is currently too
little deterrence for men who pay for sex, and that creates a
market for trafficking for sexual exploitation. Indeed, the
Government’s modern slavery strategy includes just two references
to the need to “reduce demand”, and neither relates to sexual
exploitation.
Law enforcement action against individuals who fuel the demand
for sexual exploitation and who directly abuse victims has also
been woeful. Section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which
is headed “Paying for sexual services of a prostitute subjected
to force etc.”, describes a strict liability offence. However,
between 2013 and 2020, just three individuals were convicted
under section 53A, and the maximum penalty applied was a fine of
no more than £100. We think that the law should be strengthened
and penalties increased to ensure comparability with other sexual
and trafficking offences, and to increase the deterrent value.
There should also be much greater use of section 53A by police
forces and the Crown Prosecution Service.
The Committee found that websites advertising prostitution enable
and profit from such exploitation without even minimal safeguards
on those platforms. We were deeply concerned by the decision of
the National Crime Agency and the Home Office to work with these
websites, given that there is no evidence that that has led to a
reduction in human trafficking on them. Websites are directly
fuelling sex trafficking across the UK, and causing unimaginable
harm to victims. We therefore call on the Government to make it
an offence for any individual or company to enable or profit from
the prostitution of another person, including the facilitation
that takes place via websites.
Let me now turn to the subject of prosecution. The national
referral system is the UK’s national framework for identifying
and supporting victims of modern slavery, including human
trafficking. The high number of referrals to the NRM, totalling
16,938 in 2022, highlights the scope of exploitation in the UK,
but the CPS received only 286 referrals of human trafficking
cases in 2022, which resulted in just 405 people being
prosecuted. We were very concerned at the disparity in those
figures, particularly as we heard during our inquiry that the
number of referrals to the NRM is almost certainly not a true
reflection of the number of victims.
In accordance with the College of Policing’s authorised
professional practice for investigation, all suspected modern
slavery offences are to be treated as serious crimes.
Additionally, human trafficking and modern slavery have been
identified by the National Crime Agency as a national priority
threat, yet Dame Sara Thornton, the previous Independent
Anti-Slavery Commissioner, told us that the low prosecution rates
are due to the level of priority and resources, including expert
teams, that police forces have applied.
To increase the number of prosecutions, there must be additional
training for law enforcement. Police and crime commissioners
should consider setting modern slavery and human trafficking as a
priority in their police and crime plans, and there must be more
use of evidence-led investigations. We would also tell law
enforcement to follow the money, as there are clear links with
money laundering and other criminal activity.
Crucially, we say that victim support must be at the centre of
the investigation and prosecution process. The “victim navigator”
programme is working to support this, with an independent support
worker working with the police to act as a trusted bridge between
investigators and victims. This scheme should be expanded and
used in all cases.
Finally, to hold perpetrators of human trafficking accountable,
the Modern Slavery Act 2015 must be applicable to all those who
perpetrate this crime. That is why we recommend that the Act’s
definition of human trafficking should be amended to remove the
requirement for the exploitation to have involved travel, and to
clarify that the consent of the victim, in relation to either the
travel or the exploitation itself, is irrelevant.
As long as the crime of human trafficking is committed, we will
need to support and protect victims, but we are not getting it
right here either. Right now, the NRM decision-making process is
extremely slow. The average waiting time for a conclusive grounds
decision in 2022, across both competent authorities, was 543
days. This contributes to the stress, anxiety and depression of
victims, who face an uncertain future. Furthermore, these delays
have caused many victims to drop out of the process before it
concludes, leaving them exposed to a risk of re-trafficking.
We heard how long waiting times can be particularly detrimental
to British national victims, who may opt out, rather than wait in
the NRM, and try to receive help and support elsewhere. The Home
Office also failed to produce sufficient evidence to our inquiry
to support its claims of widespread abuse of the national
referral mechanism and of people trying to game the system in
order to claim asylum. We recommend dealing with the backlog and
reducing the number of days that NRM decisions take, and we ask
the Government again to provide comprehensive data to support
their claims of abuse of the NRM, if that data exists.
For some victims, the NRM is not the right support mechanism. In
2022, 41% of all referrals to the NRM were children. The Council
of Europe’s expert group on human trafficking notes that, in
2019, the NRM comprised: UK nationals, 52%; Vietnamese nationals,
9%; Eritrean nationals, 6%; Albanian nationals, 6%; and Sudanese
nationals, 5%. Several organisations told us that the number of
children experiencing exploitation is likely to be much higher
than the officially reported cases, yet the NRM is not
appropriate for children. There is an urgent need for a joined-up
approach to victim support that adequately addresses their
needs.
We are also deeply concerned by the lack of action on missing
victims of child trafficking. Measures such as devolving decision
making to local authorities and providing independent child
trafficking guardians to support victims are examples of schemes
that can have a very positive effect but are not widely
available. We are concerned that, more than two years into the
pilots, we are still awaiting any evaluation. We also recommend
introducing a statutory definition of child criminal
exploitation. Finally, the report makes it clear that it is
certainly not appropriate to accommodate children in hotels,
particularly unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
I hope the report marks a turning point in the Government’s
response to human trafficking. They can and must do much better.
To that end, I welcome the decision by the House of Lords to
appoint a special inquiry Committee on post-legislative scrutiny
of the Modern Slavery Act, which will begin its work next year. I
hope the recommendations and evidence base that we brought
together in our report prove valuable to the Committee in its
deliberations.
The Home Affairs Committee’s report offers the Government a clear
road map for getting the UK’s response to human trafficking back
on track. I am pleased that the Minister for Illegal Migration is
on the Treasury Bench this afternoon, and I urge the Government
to take heed of the recommendations.
(East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, I concur with
everything the Chair has just said. She raised the very
unsatisfactory absence of an Independent Anti-Slavery
Commissioner for more than 18 months. Will she elaborate on our
recommendation that the Committee should have a pre-appointment
hearing role, as we have for certain other positions? That might
enable us to chase the Government rather more effectively on
filling that role.
Secondly, the Chair said that the NRM is not appropriate for
children and that the Government have been slow to roll out
independent child trafficking guardians, let alone a definition
of child criminal exploitation. Does she agree that this goes
well beyond just trafficking? This is about child safeguarding,
child welfare and children in the criminal justice system, and it
really needs a joined-up approach involving several different
Departments. Otherwise, these kids will end up being perpetrators
rather than the victims that, in many cases, they are.
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who is an excellent deputy
Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. His contributions are always
very valuable. On children, I absolutely agree that we need a
joined-up approach across Government.
On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, the Committee is
disappointed that it has taken so long for an Independent
Anti-Slavery Commissioner to be appointed, but we recognise that
we could play a useful role in having a pre-appointment hearing
for that important role. We said in our recommendations that we
would like the Government to consider that, and we look forward
to seeing the new Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner at the
end of January 2024, although that will be after her appointment.
I hope the Government will take heed of our call for
pre-appointment hearings in future.
(Eltham) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend and her Committee on this
excellent report. Will she comment on the research that found
that 75% of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are
advertised online? One of these adult services websites gave
evidence to the Committee that it allows
“individuals to advertise multiple people for prostitution
concurrently, that age verification of individuals advertised on
their site is not required, and that the same contact phone
number can be used on multiple adverts.”
When I read that, I was struck that we could take simple measures
to eradicate the loopholes that these websites exploit. What does
my right hon. Friend think the Government should do? Does she
think the Government could act quickly to deal with such
issues?
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. All the Committee’s
members were shocked when we took evidence about these adult
services websites—pimping websites—which are platforms used by
serious organised criminals to traffic women, in the main, and
advertise them completely legitimately and legally using, as my
hon. Friend says, the same telephone number and often very
similar advertisements. Hon. and right hon. Members should look
at those adverts, as I did in my local area in Hull. I was
shocked to see women advertised— “New in town”, “Only here for a
week”—using very similar telephone numbers and pictures;
obviously, they are being moved around the country. These are
serious organised criminals who are doing this. I hope the
Government will take into account what we say in our report,
because when we questioned the Home Secretary at that time, she
was not aware of the issue. In fact, we were concerned that the
National Crime Agency and the Home Office, which have had lots of
meetings with these websites, such as Vivastreet, seem to be
taking an approach that is not about the safeguarding of these
women, who are obviously being raped multiple times a day through
these adverts.
We also know that Vivastreet and other platforms are making a lot
of money. It is quite clear from the evidence that we received
that the Home Office acknowledges that these websites are
fuelling the sexual exploitation of women and the trafficking of
women into this country. If the Minister and the Government do
not do anything else, I really implore them to look at that
section of our report, because it is shocking. Indeed, all
Members of this House would do well to have a look as well.
(Barrow and Furness) (Con)
I thank the Chair for her statement. As a member of the
Committee, I found this an interesting but deeply troubling area
to look into. Building on what the Chair has just said, the adult
services websites are one of the most pernicious parts of our
online economy, and the Home Office said that they are the “the
most significant enabler” of online exploitation. We heard
evidence that those that engage with law enforcement—which is not
all of them, by any means—can show pitifully few results from
that engagement, in terms of identifying trafficking, helping
those individuals or reporting to law enforcement. Does the right
hon. Member agree that one measure that we would like the
Government to take is to work with the regulator to get these
websites to police their own platforms and ensure that they
better identify vulnerable people, but that if they fail to do
so, the Government should work with the regulator to make sure
they are forced to do so?
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who is an excellent member
of the Committee. I know that we all found the session when we
heard from Vivastreet to be a distressing one. He is absolutely
right in his suggestions; indeed, I would go further. I am old
enough to remember when there was a problem with pimps putting
these little cards in phone boxes to advertise women for
prostitution, but the law was changed and now that is not
allowed. Offline, they cannot do that, but these adverts are
still online. That needs to be addressed, and it is part of our
bigger discussion about the online world. Where there is abuse
and criminal activity going on, I hope that the regulators will
address it. As the Minister is in his place, I hope he will also
take a good look at this and see what more this House can do.
(Denton and Reddish)
(Lab)
I, too, thank my right hon. Friend and other members of the
Committee for their deliberations on this important subject. The
report is very thorough. I was pleased to hear her talk about the
need to support and protect victims, because these people are
indeed victims of horrendous crimes. They are crimes that we
thought the landmark Modern Slavery Act 2015, introduced by the
right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), would seek to tackle,
but unfortunately that has stalled. Was consideration given in my
right hon. Friend’s report to the Government’s insistence on
approaching this as an immigration matter and looking at it
through the prism of immigration law, rather than focusing on the
safeguarding of vulnerable women and children?
I thank my hon. Friend for that question; that was an issue that
concerned the Committee greatly. We felt that this area was being
viewed through the prism of immigration law, when it needed to be
viewed through the prism of safeguarding. We were very
disappointed that it was moved from the Minister for Safeguarding
in the Home Office and made the responsibility of the Immigration
Minister. We did not think that that was the appropriate place
for it to sit.
Just to reiterate, when we talk about trafficking, we are talking
about criminal offences against the individual, whereas with
immigration law we are obviously talking about an offence against
the state, which is quite different. I hope that the new Minister
will reflect on that, because I understand that this is listed
among his responsibilities, whereas the Committee’s view is that
it should move to the Minister in the Department who has
responsibilities for safeguarding.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the shadow Minister.
(Barnsley Central) (Lab)
May I join others in thanking my right hon. Friend and all the
other members of the Home Affairs Committee, and the Clerks and
the staff, for the hard work they put into producing this
important report? As the report rightly says, human trafficking
is a profit-driven crime that sees innocent victims utterly
exploited for financial gain. It is only by operating a
zero-tolerance approach and giving our criminal justice system
the expertise it needs to handle these complex cases that we will
see any real change.
The report highlighted a number of important issues and some
omissions in the Government’s policy, and I am keen to hear my
right hon. Friend’s thoughts on those. First, it recommends that
the Home Office should urgently resume the publication of its
annual reports on human trafficking. This is not the first time
that this issue has been raised, yet the Home Office has still
not responded. Does she agree that the Government have been too
slow and that, as a consequence, there is insufficient
transparency about the UK’s performance in tackling human
trafficking?
Secondly, the report raises the concern that, in practice, human
trafficking is no longer a priority for the UK Government. That
was not the case when the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs
May) was at the Home Office. Does my right hon. Friend agree that
it is vital that the Government get the balance right, and that
the Home Office’s current approach is letting down victims of
human trafficking?
Finally, Members will be aware—it has been mentioned already—that
in October the Government eventually appointed a new Independent
Anti-Slavery Commissioner, after 18 months of the role being left
empty. However, there are concerns about the Government giving
this job—one previously held by experts and senior police
figures—to someone without a similar level of experience as her
predecessors. Does my right hon. Friend think this was a wise
appointment?
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on the Front Bench about
annual reports. We have not had one for two years. There is
something clearly wrong in the Home Office when it cannot produce
an annual report of its activities. Sadly, we do think that
victims are being let down. My hon. Friend and other hon. Members
have referred to the fact that when the former Prime Minister,
the right hon. Member for Maidenhead, led the charge with the
Modern Slavery Act 2015—it was her flagship piece of
legislation—the UK was seen to be a world leader in this area.
Sadly, over the last few years we have slipped further and
further behind. Other countries are now taking on that mantle,
which is a great pity and does not do justice to the right hon.
Lady’s legacy.
On my hon. Friend’s final point, we were disappointed by how long
it took to appoint an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner and
by the lack of priority given to filling that post. As I said, we
had no input into that—there was no pre-appointment hearing—so we
are yet to see the person who has been appointed. We are looking
forward to seeing her at the end of January, and we certainly
want someone who will stand up and make sure that the Government
hear clearly what is and is not working in the field of modern
slavery and trafficking. I am heartened to hear that the new
person is talking very much about the victims and focusing on
them, which is absolutely vital. However, we will see her at the
end of January, and we hope that we have someone who will be a
strong advocate in this area.
The Minister for Illegal Migration ()
May I add my thanks to the right hon. Member and her Committee
for this comprehensive report on human trafficking? We will of
course consider all the recommendations and findings, and respond
in the usual way. She will understand that I will refrain from
giving a full answer now—not least because you told me not to,
Madam Deputy Speaker—but the Government recognise the importance
of this subject and will respond in due course in the usual
way.
May I also thank the right hon. Member for the warm welcome she
and her Committee gave me yesterday? Because you have asked me to
ask a question, Madam Deputy Speaker, I ask the right hon. Member
if she is looking forward to working constructively with me and
my ministerial team, as I am with her and her Committee?
rose—
And she smiles.
Well, I smile quite a lot actually, but perhaps not as much as I
would like to at the Home Affairs Committee. I thought we gave
the two new Ministers a warm welcome yesterday; at times, we gave
them quite a roasting, actually.
The House of Commons has given the members of the Home Affairs
Committee, and myself as the Chair, the important job of
scrutinising the Home Office, its policies, the way money is
spent and what Ministers are doing. I take that very seriously,
as do the members of the Committee. Of course we will want to
work with the Minister, but we will scrutinise him and ask
difficult questions. When they attend, we expect Ministers and
officials to be fully briefed and to give full answers to the
questions that members ask them in the role that we have been
given by the House of Commons to scrutinise the Home Office.
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