Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that companies consider the entirety of their supply chains when fulfilling their obligations under section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
The Government accepted the majority of the recommendations of the Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act. The details are set out in the Government response to the Independent Review, published on 9 July 2019 at www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-response-to-the-independent-review-of-the-modern-slavery-act.
As part of its response to the Independent Review, the Home Office launched a public consultation on potential changes to the Modern Slavery Act’s transparency legislation on 9 July 2019. The Government response to the consultation, published on 22 September 2020, committed to introducing an ambitious package of measures to strengthen and future-proof the legislation, including:
extending the reporting requirement to public bodies with a budget of £36 million or more;
mandating the specific reporting topics that statements must cover
requiring statements to be published on the new Government digital reporting service
setting a single reporting deadline; and
taking forwards options for penalties for non-compliance in line with the ongoing development of the Single Enforcement Body for employment rights.
These measures require legislative change and as such will be introduced when parliamentary time allows.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2020 to Question 69698, what estimate he has made of the number of extradition requests made by the USA to the UK during the period 1 January 2004 to 31 July 2020, and of those requests what was the (a) nationality of the defendant for each extradition request (b) number of successful extraditions by the nationality of the defendant and (c) number of rejected requests by the nationality of the defendant.
Answered by James Brokenshire
As a matter of long-standing policy and practice, we do not disclose whether an extradition request has been made or received until such time as a person is arrested in relation to the request. We therefore cannot provide the total number of extradition requests made by the USA to the UK or vice versa.
Statistics showing the nationality of the subject of requests which led to an extradition are available from January 2010 as nationality was not centrally recorded for all cases before this time. Statistics showing the nationality of the subject of requests which were refused are available from 1 January 2004 and are set out below.
US EXTRADITION REQUESTS TO THE UK LEADING TO EXTRADITION (Jan 2010 – July 2020) | |
NATIONALITY | NUMBER |
British * | 51 (*includes 10 individuals with dual nationality) |
US * | 20 (*includes 5 individuals with dual nationality) |
Somali | 2 |
South African | 1 |
Jamaican | 3 |
Indian | 1 |
Irish | 2 |
Mexican | 1 |
Egyptian | 2 |
Saudi Arabian | 1 |
Romanian | 5 |
Pakistani | 5 |
Chinese | 1 |
Ghanaian* | 2 (*includes 1 individual with dual nationality) |
Colombian | 2 |
Ukrainian | 3 |
Iranian | 1 |
Lithuanian | 1 |
Italian | 1 |
Latvian | 1 |
Nigerian | 3 |
Vietnamese | 1 |
Dutch | 1 |
German | 1 |
Danish | 1 |
Bangladeshi / Belizean (Dual national) | 1 |
UK REFUSALS OF US EXTRADITION REQUESTS BY NATIONALITY SINCE 2004 | |
NATIONALITY | NUMBER |
British * | 11 |
US * | 6 |
Chinese | 2 |
Iranian | 1 |
Israeli | 1 |
Total | 21 |
* includes individuals who hold dual nationality
In relation to the difference in the numbers of unsuccessful requests, the Answers given to Questions 4307 and 69698 covered different time periods. All figures are taken from local management information and are not quality assured to the level of published National Statistics. As such they should always be treated as provisional and therefore subject to change as officials refresh and revise the available data. The figures do not include Scotland, which deals with its own extradition cases.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 6 July 2020 to Question 69698 on Extradition: USA, for what reason the number of refused extradition requests from the US to the UK is different to the number of unsuccessful requests given in the Answer of 26 June 2020 to Question 4307.
Answered by James Brokenshire
As a matter of long-standing policy and practice, we do not disclose whether an extradition request has been made or received until such time as a person is arrested in relation to the request. We therefore cannot provide the total number of extradition requests made by the USA to the UK or vice versa.
Statistics showing the nationality of the subject of requests which led to an extradition are available from January 2010 as nationality was not centrally recorded for all cases before this time. Statistics showing the nationality of the subject of requests which were refused are available from 1 January 2004 and are set out below.
US EXTRADITION REQUESTS TO THE UK LEADING TO EXTRADITION (Jan 2010 – July 2020) | |
NATIONALITY | NUMBER |
British * | 51 (*includes 10 individuals with dual nationality) |
US * | 20 (*includes 5 individuals with dual nationality) |
Somali | 2 |
South African | 1 |
Jamaican | 3 |
Indian | 1 |
Irish | 2 |
Mexican | 1 |
Egyptian | 2 |
Saudi Arabian | 1 |
Romanian | 5 |
Pakistani | 5 |
Chinese | 1 |
Ghanaian* | 2 (*includes 1 individual with dual nationality) |
Colombian | 2 |
Ukrainian | 3 |
Iranian | 1 |
Lithuanian | 1 |
Italian | 1 |
Latvian | 1 |
Nigerian | 3 |
Vietnamese | 1 |
Dutch | 1 |
German | 1 |
Danish | 1 |
Bangladeshi / Belizean (Dual national) | 1 |
UK REFUSALS OF US EXTRADITION REQUESTS BY NATIONALITY SINCE 2004 | |
NATIONALITY | NUMBER |
British * | 11 |
US * | 6 |
Chinese | 2 |
Iranian | 1 |
Israeli | 1 |
Total | 21 |
* includes individuals who hold dual nationality
In relation to the difference in the numbers of unsuccessful requests, the Answers given to Questions 4307 and 69698 covered different time periods. All figures are taken from local management information and are not quality assured to the level of published National Statistics. As such they should always be treated as provisional and therefore subject to change as officials refresh and revise the available data. The figures do not include Scotland, which deals with its own extradition cases.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals for a foreign agents registration Act.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The risks posed to the UK from hostile state activity have both grown and diversified. We are committed to providing our law enforcement and security services with the tools they need to tackle the evolving threats to the UK, both domestically and overseas.
The Home Office is working at pace to review the legislation relating to hostile state activity to assess whether additional powers are required to clamp down on the activities of hostile states which threaten the UK.
As part of this review we are examining the different laws that govern foreign agent registration in like-minded countries to understand whether these have been effective in tackling the threats they face from hostile states. We will use this learning to ensure that any new legislation is effective and addresses the threats we face in the UK.
This work is ongoing and has not yet reached its conclusions.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of renegotiating the UK-US Extradition Treaty to require the US Administration to provide greater evidence when requesting extradition.
Answered by James Brokenshire
There is no current intention to renegotiate the UK-US Extradition Treaty.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 26 June 2020 to Question 4307, on Extradition: USA, what assessment he has made of the reasons for the difference in the level of successful extradition requests by the (a) UK and (b) US.
Answered by James Brokenshire
The US sends more extradition requests to the UK than the UK does to the US - in the UK, the decision whether to send a request is a matter for the prosecuting authority. Requests to the UK are dealt with in accordance with extradition law, and the decisions on most issues are taken by the courts. There is also a difference in the number of unsuccessful requests. Since 2004, the UK has refused 21 requests from the US, while the US has refused one request from the UK.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to prevent human trafficking.
Answered by Victoria Atkins - Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Government is committed to tackling the heinous crime of modern slavery. We are identifying more victims of modern slavery and doing more to bring perpetrators to justice than ever before.
The Home Office works with range of partners to deliver effective prevention activity including successful awareness raising initiatives like the ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ campaign which targeted frontline professionals in healthcare, recruitment and financial sectors to spot the signs of modern slavery.
We are committed to improving our understanding of this rapidly evolving threat. In July 2019 the Government announced a £10 million investment to create a new Policy and Evidence Centre for Modern Slavery and Human Rights to transform the evidence base underpinning our policy response to modern slavery.
In May, at the Prime Minister’s Virtual Summit on Hidden Harms, the Government reiterated the absolute priority that we prevent and protect those at risk from hidden harms. This year we have provided a further £1.4 million funding to the Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Unit to support the police to tackle modern slavery and build capacity to crack down on organised immigration crime.
We are also continuing work to prevent modern slavery in public and private sector supply chains. On 26 March 2020, we became the first country to publish a Government Modern Slavery Statement setting out the steps we have taken to identify and prevent modern slavery in our own supply chains. To make it easier for consumers, investors and others to scrutinise the steps that businesses are taking address their risks the Home Office is creating a new gov.uk registry for modern slavery statements. We have also consulted on proposals to strengthen the transparency in supply chains legislation and will publish a response to this consultation in the Summer.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps she is taking to ensure that (a) police and (b) local authorities have adequate enforcement powers to disperse illegal encampments.
Answered by Kit Malthouse
On 5 November 2019, the Government launched a consultation seeking views on measures to strengthen police powers to tackle unauthorised encampments. The consultation closed on the 5 March. We will announce the outcome of this consultation in due course.
Local authorities are best-placed to determine when it is appropriate to use their powers to evict unauthorised encampments under Sections 77 and 78 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994) and should work with the police and magistrates’ courts in their local areas.