Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of civil injunctions on compliance with Part 6 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 in each year since 2015.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 established the UK as the first country in the world to require businesses to report annually on steps taken to prevent modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. To comply with the requirement, statements must be:
To assess compliance with the legal requirements, the Home Office contracted the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) to undertake an audit on the Home Office's behalf. The audit findings on levels of compliance were published on 17 September 2020 in the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner's annual report (available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-anti-slavery-commissioners-annual-report-2019-to-2020).
The Secretary of State has the power to bring civil proceedings in the High Court for an injunction requiring an organisation to comply with the duty to produce a modern slavery statement. This power has not been used to date.
In July 2018, the Home Secretary commissioned the Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act. The aim of the Review was to identify where the Act is working well, what can be improved in the implementation of the Act and whether specific areas of the legislation need to be strengthened. The independent review recommended that Government should strengthen its approach to organisations failing to comply with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and recommended use of a civil penalty scheme to penalise non-compliance.
The Government has committed to strengthen section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act, to ensure businesses and large public bodies report transparently on action they have taken to address modern slavery risks in their operations and supply chains. These measures were set out in the Government’s response to the transparency in supply chains consultation, published on 22 September 2020.
In addition, in January 2021 the Foreign Secretary announced that financial penalties will be introduced for organisations who fail to meet their statutory obligations to publish annual modern slavery statements. These measures require primary legislation and will be introduced when parliamentary time allows. The Government will publish guidance to help organisations prepare for the new reporting requirements when timings of legislation are clear.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps the Government plans to take to ensure that all police forces in England contain a dedicated rape and serious sexual offences unit; and what estimate he has made of how quickly those units could be established in all forces.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
We recognise that having police officers with the right skills is critical in ensuring rape and sexual offences cases are managed appropriately and effectively. We are supporting the police to ensure this is the case through:
The deployment of officers and structure of forces is ultimately an operational matter for Chief Constables as there will be different considerations in different force areas.
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many allegations of rape were recorded in the first three quarters of the financial year 2020-21; and how many of those cases resulted in a (a) referral to the CPS, (b) charge or summons, (c) completed prosecution and (d) conviction, including guilty pleas, within one year of recording.
Answered by Baroness Maclean of Redditch
In June 2021 the Government published its End to End Rape Review Report and Action Plan. During that review, we took a hard and honest look at how the entire criminal justice system deals with rape and in too many instances it simply had not been good enough.
The Action Plan outlined a robust programme of work to achieve a significant improvement, and we are committed to delivering on the actions in order to bring this about.
This includes the publication on a quarterly basis of scorecards to shine a light on the performance of the criminal justice system and give greater transparency.
Further information on recorded rape offences, including time to charge and measures from the CPS and Ministry of Justice, can be found in the Criminal Justice Scorecard for recorded adult rape offences:
CJS scorecard - recorded adult rape offences - Justice data
Asked by: Andy Slaughter (Labour - Hammersmith and Chiswick)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many of the initial 5,000 places on the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme will be allocated to people already in the UK.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
The Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) commenced on 6th January. The ACRS will provide up to 20,000 women, children and others at risk with a safe and legal route to resettle in the UK.
Due to the success of our emergency evacuation and the larger than anticipated number of people brought over to the UK, we plan to exceed our initial aim of 5,000 people in the first year of the ACRS.
There are around 6,500 people in the UK who have been brought to safety during and after the evacuation who are eligible for the ACRS. They include women’s rights activists, journalists, and prosecutors, as well as the Afghan families of British Nationals. This also includes some of those most at risk, such as members of the LGBT community.