Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many asylum claims on the basis of modern slavery were made by migrants (a) from Albania, (b) from Eritrea and (c) in total who crossed the English Channel in small boats in 2022.

The next quarterly statistics release on irregular migration to the UK, published on 23 February, will include data on modern slavery claims from small boats arrivals.

New measures to strengthen our National Referral Mechanism against misuse came into force last week. New legislation will ensure we only support genuine victims; not those who seek to abuse our laws to stop their removal.

In the first three quarters of 2022 (Jan to Sept) the number of NRM referrals for potential victims of modern slavery for certain nationalities were:

• 3,432 Albanian

• 897 Eritrean

• In the first two quarters of 2022 (Jan to June) based on FOI data obtained by Migration Watch UK, there were 1,156 individuals who crossed the channel who made NRM referrals.