Human Trafficking

Lord Field of Birkenhead Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, the first we have ever had in Parliament on the Government report on human trafficking. I welcome the Minister for Immigration, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), to this debate on the first annual report by the Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group on Human Trafficking. I also welcome him as chairman of the group, and I look forward to his input. The first thing he could do is to rename the group something catchier and easier to pronounce. It would also save a lot of trees if it were a shorter name to print.

I welcome the publication of the first annual report on human trafficking, promised by the Government as a fulfilment of the group’s role as the equivalent of a national rapporteur, as set out in the EU directive. As my colleagues may know, I am not always wholly supportive of the European Union, but on this occasion I think it was absolutely right that we opted in, and I think the pressure from the all-party parliamentary group against human trafficking helped the Government come to their sensible conclusion.

To pick up on something the Government have put into legislation as a result of the directive, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 now allows UK nationals who commit trafficking offences to be prosecuted even if those offences are not connected with the UK. That is a welcome change in the law, as is the power to prosecute traffickers for non-sexual trafficking offences for the first time.

Before moving on, I thank the Government for what they have done and for their commitment to fighting the evil crime of human trafficking. What I say in this debate will be constructive criticism; I will delve into the report and suggest areas where the Government could improve. My hon. Friend the Minister will not be surprised if I start with the rapporteur situation. I had a great deal of difficulty finding the relevant part of the report, but it is right at the end, in chapter 10, paragraph 19.

Under the EU directive, it is recommended that a national rapporteur report independently on the Government’s action against human trafficking and be the overarching body for collecting intelligence. In my view, setting up a national rapporteur could reduce the cost within Departments. An independent rapporteur might also be more approachable by non-governmental organisations that might be sceptical of a Government-led organisation, which would lead to greater data sharing and a better picture of the real number of trafficking victims.

Other European countries have appointed a national rapporteur. The rapporteur for the Netherlands is a former judge, and the Finnish rapporteur is a former Member of the Finnish Parliament. They do an excellent job in scrutinising their respective Governments’ action against human trafficking, as well as acting as a liaison with NGOs. The problem is that our Government have read the small print in the EU directive saying that countries can have an equivalent of the national rapporteur, which is what the interdepartmental ministerial group is.

The group did not start as a great success. In the first 18 months, it met twice, and two thirds of the Ministers gave their apologies. I know the Minister will say that that has been dealt with, the group has published its annual report and it is doing its best, but I still do not see how a group of Ministers can independently scrutinise what the Government are doing. That is also the view of the all-party parliamentary group. Of course, we will wait to see whether the interdepartmental ministerial group is successful, but we have a big question mark over that.

The Government have rightly given over a whole chapter, chapter 2, to data and a true picture of human trafficking. The report says, and the UK Human Trafficking Centre’s baseline assessment of the nature and scale of human trafficking in 2011 highlights, that the true number of trafficked victims is likely to be higher than the 2,077 reported in 2011. The figures recorded by the UK Human Trafficking Centre and the national referral mechanism are only for victims who have been rescued and have agreed to go into the system. That is a bone of contention, especially with the NGOs. I am grateful to all the NGOs that gave input into the research that went into my speech, and I particularly thank my researchers Adam Trundle, Jack Spriggs and Emma Wade for their efforts in putting it together.

Irrespective of how we come up with the number of victims, it is a number of victims. Let us suppose that the figure of 2,077 is the correct number of rescued victims in the UK last year. The NGOs would say that it is higher, but assuming that it is correct, does that represent 10% of the overall number of people trafficked? If so, more than 20,000 people were trafficked into this country last year. If the figure represents 5%, we can double that number. Whatever figure we use, trafficking is a huge problem. It is an evil crime, and we are not yet getting to the bottom of the scale of it. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) may wish to talk later about what was in effect a slave camp in his constituency that existed for almost 30 years without anybody noticing. I think the level of trafficking is a great deal higher than has been recorded, and we must work towards a solution.

I turn to the section I consider the most important. To be fair to the Government, they highlighted it in their initial strategy as one of the most important. In chapter 6, the Government recognise the vulnerability of child victims of human trafficking. However, the report says little about care arrangements for trafficked children. There is just one paragraph about it, 6.1.

Support and care for child victims of trafficking is one of the most important issues that need addressing in the UK. Under current legislation, child victims of trafficking are treated much like any other at-risk children and are under the primary control of local authorities, which often means they are placed in care homes with non-trafficked children, where security and staff observation are limited. Unfortunately, that has led on many occasions to the horrifying situation of a child who escaped trafficking being trafficked once more.

To put that in perspective, let us take a 15-year-old child who has been trafficked into this country and forced into prostitution. If we actually think about what prostitution is, anyone in prostitution who does not want to be there is suffering repeated rape day after day. Lo and behold, the police come and rescue her, and they do a really good job of it; the police are very good at rescuing victims. If all that happens is that she is put in a care home, and the traffickers know where she is, they can re-traffic her. That is a scandal. There has been some national publicity relating to internal trafficking, but the problem remains.

Many local authorities are not even aware of the dangers of human trafficking of children in care. They often report missing children as just missing, without investigating the possibility that they have been re-trafficked. Responsibility for children’s care locally falls on local authorities, but nationally it falls on the Department for Education. Instead of a clearly defined Department or authority in charge of trafficked children’s care and welfare, there is confusion over who is ultimately accountable.

For the first time in this country—I certainly cannot think of another example—the provision of care for trafficked adults is better than that for trafficked children. How we treat child victims of trafficking is the key issue the Government face in our fight against this great evil. A Government contract of nearly £2 million to the Salvation Army includes support and accommodation for adult victims of trafficking. The big society model of allowing the Salvation Army to allocate resources to local charities around the country leads to a system of care and protection that allows adult victims of trafficking to return home, or recover and live a worthwhile life in this country. There is no such independent, specialised provision for child victims of trafficking.

The welfare of children is the responsibility of local authorities, which often do not recognise that trafficking is an issue in their areas and often provide substandard care to trafficked children. As co-chairman of the all-party group on human trafficking, I issued a freedom of information request to all local authorities on the number of trafficked children in their care; very few were able to give me any numbers whatsoever. When I asked the few who took the matter seriously how many of those children then disappeared, the answer was that a staggering 80% to 90% went missing again. That is not good enough. I do not criticise the Government; they have recognised the problem and initiated a pilot scheme.

Barnardo’s currently leads the pilot scheme for children-centred, care-orientated safe homes. They are designed for child victims of trafficking only and provide them with the necessary support, which the local authority care system does not provide. Recently, nine child-centred non-governmental organisations, including Love146 and Barnardo’s, formed an alliance on care for trafficked and exploited children. The alliance recently made a bid to the Department for Education to deliver specialised residential care for child victims. If successful, it will be able quickly to set up five residential care homes. It is an excellent example of how Government funding can be used in conjunction with committed, child-focused NGOs that can set up and run safe homes for child victims.

We always think we are ahead of the game and on top of social care. In 2010, I went to see a safe home in the Philippines. Children who had been trafficked in the most horrible way came into the home traumatised, and left within two years. I attended the wedding of one of the trafficked children. We should be able to run that sort of project in this country, and not let these poor children be re-trafficked.

I strongly urge the Minister and the Government to expand the Barnardo’s pilot scheme into a national policy and seriously to consider adopting child safe homes as an alternative to local authority care for trafficked children. It will have cost implications for the Government—in that it will save them money. For example, local government pays £30,000 a year to look after a child in the normal system; but give just a part of that money to the NGOs and they would look after that child far better. The child could go into society, could go home, as a proper individual. It is the biggest single element of the problem.

I am sorry that my speech is running a little longer than I had hoped. I want to cover a couple more points. Chapter 5.50 of the report refers to the joint investigation teams. The Government rightly recognise the good job that JITs do. I recently attended a seminar hosted by the all-party group for global uncertainties. Detective Chief Inspector Nick Sumner, from the specialist and economic crime command at the Metropolitan Police, gave us a good insight into the law enforcement side of human trafficking. He mentioned the vital role that JITs play in combating trafficking at home and abroad, the results of which can be seen already, for example in Operation Golf in 2008. That joint operation between the Romanian and British police and prosecution services was a resounding success, with 87 people arrested for trafficking offences and 272 victims rescued.

Detective Sumner raised the issue that funding for JITs is not guaranteed in the future. I strongly recommend that this vital resource be well funded and supported, because the results of such bilateral operations seem to show that they are the most successful way to tackle and destroy these gangs. To get on top of human trafficking, we must destroy the gangs of serious criminals involved. Trafficking is the second most profitable organised crime, behind drugs. The advantage of it is that there is much less chance of being caught. We must protect the funding for JITs.

Chapter 6.57 mentions international development aid. The Government have only just started to realise the great advantage of such aid, and a little bit is happening. Overseas aid money could be usefully spent in source countries in two ways. First, it could be spent on prevention measures, which we would all welcome, such as paying NGOs to promote education, perhaps in schools and universities, warning of the dangers of trafficking. I saw such schemes in Moldova.

Secondly, we need the money to be given to NGOs, in Romania for example. There are trafficking victims in this country whom we are looking after at taxpayers’ expense—£30,000 or £40,000 a year—and who want to go home but cannot, because their families would be persecuted or, worse still, they would be re-trafficked if they went back to their village. Sending them home to safe houses—in Romania, for example—run by local NGOs with the support of our overseas aid money would be a good use of that money. I have discussed this with the Secretary of State for International Development and she seemed sympathetic. I wrote to her with suggestions.

I shall pass over the next point I was going to make and move on to my last couple of points. Chapter 4.28 covers victim prosecutions. It is a difficult issue and I understand the Government’s problem. The non-governmental organisations and I say that if someone, perhaps a young child, is trafficked to work in a cannabis factory in this country—a criminal activity—and that factory is raided and broken up by the police, the child working in the factory should not be prosecuted, because they were trafficked. They were not given an option; they were forced to perform the illegal activity. The Attorney-General has repeatedly given Government assurances that it is not Crown Prosecution Service policy to prosecute such people, but NGO after NGO has cases of people forced into illegal activity and then prosecuted.

I agree with the Government on one issue. The report states:

“A small number of trafficked victims may be prosecuted for offences they have committed as a consequence of their trafficking situation”.

The NGOs that I work with would throw up their hands in horror at that and say that it is wrong, but I understand that there is a moral dilemma. If someone is trafficked for sexual exploitation, they get into prostitution, though they may not want to, and move up the gang chain. They then become a recruiter of young girls, by moving back to their home country and trafficking girls, while knowing full well what the girls will have to go through. I agree that there is a case for prosecuting those people.

Finally, I turn to an omission that I hope was made in error. Nowhere in the report is there mention of the all-party group on human trafficking. It may be that the Prime Minister deliberately wanted my name removed from anything relating to Government; I quite understand that possibility.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

But not Mrs Bone’s.

[Mr Bone]

No. Mrs Bone is not mentioned either, which is an even greater sin.

I am sure that the Prime Minister recognises the great work done by the all-party group, which I want to speak more about. It was originally set up by the most knowledgeable and brilliant person in the fight against human trafficking—Anthony Steen, the former Member of Parliament for Totnes, who I think is following this debate closely. It is one of the largest all-party groups in Parliament, with more than 60 members from the Commons and the Lords, and representatives from every political party. This parliamentary group, which I am honoured to co-chair with Baroness Butler-Sloss, has put pressure on the Government to sign up to the EU directive, asked parliamentary questions to hold the Government to account on human trafficking and scrutinised the Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group on Human Trafficking to ensure that it meets regularly and delivers an annual report, which we are now happily debating.

The all-party group seeks to increase awareness of the evil of human trafficking, not only at home but across Europe. Through funding from the EU Commission, members of the all-party group have travelled to other countries’ Parliaments to create a European network to raise awareness of the national and transnational nature of human trafficking. Some European countries have been very good, but the French and the Germans say that there is no trafficking in their countries, which is completely absurd. We want to create a network of European groups or sub-committees that are similar to the all-party group—APGs are not recognised in other Parliaments—and we are working towards that.

The Anti-Slavery Day Act 2010 was skilfully taken through Parliament by Anthony Steen in the dying days of that Session. While we were all worrying about our seats, Anthony was busy railroading it through. As a result, anti-slavery day is celebrated on 18 October each year. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister, who held a reception at No. 10 Downing street, for his key interest and support in this area, which is a key priority of the coalition. I also thank Anthony Steen for his extraordinary work. If it had not been for him, that Act would not have happened and, more importantly, there would not be this level of awareness about human trafficking.

There is one action that I want the Minister seriously to consider. The Prime Minister has appointed ambassadors in many other fields; if he appointed Anthony Steen as one on this issue, he could be introduced with the authority of the Prime Minister when we visit overseas Parliaments. I welcome all that the Government and the Minister are doing, but I think that that would be one easy step to take.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I am pleased to take part in this debate, and particularly to follow the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who has outlined horrendous events. For the reasons he explained, I joined the all-party group and went with the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) —he is my hon. Friend for this afternoon—to the Backbench Business Committee to ask for this debate. It is incredible that we live in a country that has slavery. Indeed, the Government could take one small initiative and change the name of their working group to the “ministerial counter-slavery group”, so that we are very clear about what is going on here. It has been going on for decades.

Although I was shocked by the circumstances that have been described, I was also pretty shocked by the lightness of the sentences. When we think that two decades of some people’s lives have been taken away—there are several of them in several areas—to merely get a sentence of a decade or three or four years is pretty small beer for the wickedness committed. There are many wickednesses in this world. Of those that are human-made, this clearly must rank as one of the great ones. I find it puzzling that there is not much anger and interest in the country to counter this evil that stalks among us. What would Wilberforce have made of this if he had come back or been contacted in a séance? What would he make of his campaign and our behaviour that follows it?

Although I welcome and congratulate the Government on the landmark publication in October of the first annual report of what I would like to be called “the ministerial counter-slavery group,” which is a step forward, I do not want anyone to be complacent. I do not want to part company with my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough, but if we look at it, our record in Europe is pretty appalling. Most of us, including me, have a superior attitude to Europe, but we are many, many years behind our European partners. Belgium, for example, has published 15 reports, and we have published one; this is a priority of the coalition Government, and we have one report. That is not the only thing Belgium has done, because it has been quite active.

Although I thank the Backbench Business Committee, it is extraordinary that, for what is a Government priority, we had to go to the Committee to ask for a debate. If I were heading a Government and this was a priority, I would want to talk about it, report on it and gain as much support for it as I could. We should not get too complacent. One of the many things we might ask the Minister is: when are we next going to debate the topic on the Floor of the House in Government time?

Secondly, most European countries allocate parliamentary time to discuss and debate their reports and the recommendations made by their rapporteurs. Again, I emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart): there is all the difference in the world between a group of Ministers occasionally coming together to debate a topic of the day, and having a person with a small number of staff and the responsibility to drive the policy. We would know that that person is responsible and will be ridiculed—or perhaps even sacked—if they do not do what Parliament wishes them to do.

The report is a small beginning, and I hope, as both my hon. Friends the Members for Slough and for Wellingborough said, that we have clear timetables from the Government on how they will achieve certain priorities. As my hon. Friend said, it is true that we had to use parliamentary questions to find out how many times the group met. It is extraordinary that for what is a Government priority—we did not have to use the Freedom of Information Act—we had to use parliamentary questions. The Government saw the priority as so important that they made the group secret. Although there has been some improvement in attendance, the group’s function, other than sharing information with other Government Departments, seems pretty unclear.

However good, the group will now be under the Minister. I do not underestimate his abilities. In a sense, we have events on our side, because he is at the stage of his parliamentary career where he wishes to advance quickly: self-interest and the public good, when combined, can promote many changes, which we will support. Things are clearly going to change, but, however good he is—and, obviously and quite properly, he wishes to promote his own career—conflicts will occur between making trouble and advancing further up that greasy pole. The first thing for a Government with that priority is to give us a rapporteur with the smallest staff possible. I totally agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough on that point.

The report states that the Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group on Human Trafficking—I almost want to give up the will to live with such titles—fulfils a role equivalent to a national rapporteur. All of us who have spoken so far know that that is not true, and the Government ought to drop it. The UK is obliged to establish a rapporteur by the Council of Europe’s trafficking convention and by the incoming EU directive, although there is weasel room to change things. Dishonourably, the Government have taken that little get-out to present a ministerial group without a rapporteur. Just imagine what it would be like if there were a ministerial group working with and supporting a rapporteur, advancing their interests and backing them when they are in difficulties. Might that not begin to match the issue we face? There is slavery in this country. People are taken against their will either inside the country or outside it and made to work. Is there anything more shameful going on? What a move it would be if we had a ministerial group driven by the Minister—I do not doubt for a moment that such a group would be ably driven—and backed up by a national rapporteur.

My concern is that, unless we make that breakthrough, we will not make the progress that I hope the Minister will tell us he hopes to achieve. No other group in this country believes that it should act as judge and jury on its own case. It is important that the Government have an independent jury to consider what is going on, for the report goes into great detail on the number of initiatives introduced by the Government. That progress, of course, is to be cheered and welcomed by everyone with an interest, but little effort has been made to analyse the impact and effectiveness of those initiatives. Where in the report can we look at outcomes? What outcomes are being set by the interdepartmental ministerial group—when its members can find the time to turn up? Why should that be so? The answer is plainly obvious: there is naturally a conflict of interest between the Government retaining responsibility for both the design and implementation of anti-trafficking strategies, and the subsequent evaluation of their effectiveness.

An independent rapporteur is necessary to analyse Government policy robustly, to identify shortcomings and to suggest improvements. That is not an anti-Government move. I slightly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Slough, because an independent rapporteur would give the Government a lot of powerful ammunition to spin, if their aim is to put over what they are achieving.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I was not suggesting that an independent rapporteur would be important as a powerful anti-Government move. My right hon. Friend is right that, where the Government have had successes, an independent rapporteur would strengthen the account of those successes, but it would also have the power of independence, meaning that those bits of the report that I cited, which spin legislation as working when there is no such evidence, would not have been part of the report. The report was damaged by such things existing within it.

[Mr Field]

I agree. I will develop that point, because the interdepartmental ministerial group lacks statutory powers to request information from all relevant Government authorities. I am sure the Minister will not have difficulties in getting such information, but he lacks the statutory authority to do so. That statutory power could be given to the rapporteur.

As a result, the interdepartmental ministerial group relies heavily on information from what is called the national referral mechanism, which is a data-gathering mechanism that can supply only a snapshot of the reality. It cannot give us a moving picture, as mentioned by the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire, which we would get in these reports if there were somebody the only point of whose existence, as far as paying the mortgage was concerned, was to report on this great evil.

Where can we look for best practice? In the Netherlands, the Dutch rapporteur is chaired by a former judge and in Finland by a former Member of Parliament and a member of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Both have a small team of staff who sit apart from the Government, the police and public authorities and actively work full time—unlike the ministerial group—at all levels and with all groups in the community. In contrast, the ministerial group only managed to gather information from one public agency, the UK Human Trafficking Centre. That is entirely at odds with what happens, as other hon. Members have said, in other European countries. In Portugal, for example, the Portuguese Observatory collects and manages information from a wide range of sources and sets benchmarks that we should follow. If we had greater and more accurate data, it would be easier to set those benchmarks.

A glaring failure of the Government’s report is the lack of accurate and meaningful data. I accept that the statistics in this area will always be difficult to collect, but the report is undermined by statistical inconsistencies. Let me illustrate. In 2010, the police’s Project Acumen found 2,600 female adult victims of trafficking. How is that consistent with the report’s predicted total figure of 2,000 for human trafficking victims in the UK, which is for 2011, just one year on? The figures do not add up, which again suggests that if one Minister in the ministerial group had had time to read the whole report, they might have actually spotted that.

The report offers a good overall view of activities undertaken by the Government, but it reveals little in terms of analysis of the problem or the impact of the work undertaken. The picture is clearly so much more complicated than can be provided in a snapshot. How can people be imprisoned in this way—for example, in mid-Bedfordshire or Gloucestershire—for such periods without anybody coming across it, without anybody noticing, and with nobody saying anything or raising the matter? Goodness, gracious me! What level of human sympathy do we have when that can occur?

More of these examples would come to light if we had a situational analysis and impact assessment of how we can more effectively combat trafficking. For example, the report lists the training that was delivered, but no information is provided about the impact of training on improvements in services, the numbers of victims identified, and so on. Similarly, in a number of places the report mentions different Departments or authorities being responsible for implementing elements of the policy. Where is all this brought together? However, it does not go into detail about how and whether these responsibilities are carried out, how they are assessed and what the concrete outcomes of the work undertaken were. We need to see an evaluation from each of the Departments and authorities of the implementation work that falls within their areas of responsibility, and for them to report to the Minister, and for the Minister to report to the House of Commons.

We need a much better analysis of what is happening within the various sectors where victims are exploited, including explanations of rises in particular nationalities, of geographic distribution and of flows and movement of the problem across the UK over time. Again, it would appear that the problem is static and that, somehow, we are dealing with a group of people who do not change their approach. People may say, “Why should they change their approach? They are doing so well with a single approach now.” But they will change if the Government get serious. Spotting and guessing the movements are crucial if we are going to save people from slavery. By “various sectors”, I mean areas into which victims are trafficked. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough cited companies whose products we use that are produced by slaves, including in legal sectors such as agriculture, construction, hospitality and care and domestic work, and illegal sectors such as the sex industry and drug production.

We are also provided with little detailed analysis of the methods of recruitment. How are people trapped in this way, and stripped and publicly humiliated in the way that we have heard? How can that go on for decades? In other countries, breakdowns of incidence of trafficking by region are available, as well as an overall view of police force activities, which courts have dealt with cases, what the outcomes of those cases were, and what the sentences were.

Why do I raise these questions? The answer is pretty obvious. Our lack of data is a key barrier to a more effective response. Much effort in combating human trafficking, or slavery, has focused more on anecdote and sensationalism than on analysis of the problems. We simply do not know to what extent industry in this country, or sections of industry, are dependent on slaves to be viable or what the profit margins of using slaves are for those firms and sectors of our economy. If we had such information, that would alert us to where slavery is operating in our country.

Human trafficking, which, as the Government acknowledge, is modern day slavery, today functions for the same purpose as slavery throughout history: to maximise profits by minimising or eliminating the cost of labour. But there are several key differences with modern slavery that make it more expansive and more insidious than ever before. Slaves today can be exploited in dozens of industries that are intrinsically woven into the global economy, as opposed to just domestic service and agriculture, as was the case when Wilberforce dealt with the issue. It is much more difficult now to locate where slavery is going on.

Of course, the costs today of acquiring a slave and the time taken to transport him or her from the point of acquisition to the point of exploitation are minuscule, compared with those of old world slavery. Victims of human trafficking—again, I would insist on the word “slaves”—are more accessible, expendable, exploitable and profitable than ever before. That is why this evil is so terrible, huge and growing.

Two centuries ago, the average slave could generate, we are told by the experts, a 15% to 20% annual return on the investment for his or her exploiters. It is of course vulgar to use such terms when describing victims, but it is not unhelpful, sometimes, to look at the economic power and force behind the problem. Today, the return is several hundred per cent. per year—not over the life of the slave, but per slave per year—and more than 900% per year for those who are trapped as slaves in the sex industry. This is perhaps the primary reason why there is such demand among exploiters to acquire more slaves through the practice of slave trading. There are more people in slavery today than in the entire 350-year history of the slave trade: more today than ever before, collectively. A snapshot is set against that collective total. A lack of detailed understanding of how and why slave-like exploitation functions in various sectors of the global economy is a primary barrier to a more effective response.

That brings me to the all-party group on human trafficking, and NGOs. Perhaps we also need to change the name of the all-party group, so that it is clearer and shorter. Since 2006, the activities of the all-party group, both inside and outside Parliament, have resulted not just in a significant raising of awareness about the extent of human trafficking in the UK, but also a number of concrete achievements. It influenced the previous Administration—our Labour Government—to join the 2005 Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking and persuaded the current Administration to sign the EU directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims. Were I Prime Minister, the thought that I might get the hon. Member for Wellingborough out to support me would have made me sign the directive without even reading what it was about. Were it not for the demands in February of the hon. Gentleman, the chairman of our group, no annual report would have been written, nor would his efforts have been debated. That is, however, only a snapshot of a few of the many important achievements of the group.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend makes a bold statement. Is he suggesting that the Government would not have reported or would have hidden their work had it not been for the all-party group and its chairman with his particular influence? That is quite an accusation—that the Government would have hidden things had they not been pressured into the report before us.

[Mr Field]

Of course that is true—my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and Mrs Bone achieved it—but it might be a good point for the Minister to take up. Would the Government have conceded the report without the pressure from my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough?

Despite the achievements of the all-party group, there is no mention of us in the report—an almost childlike response—and nor is recognition given to the Human Trafficking Foundation, which services our group and of which I am proud to be a co-vice-chairman. The foundation is chaired by the former Member for Totnes, Mr Anthony Steen. We have all, properly, mentioned him, and no current or former Member of this House had done more to put human slavery on the agenda than he has. As others have, I pay the warmest possible tribute to him and to his continued interest since he ceased to be a Member.

The report makes no mention of the extensive work of the foundation to bring together non-governmental organisations throughout the country in forums and related working groups, or of the recognition that NGOs deserve, although their work is essential and a prerequisite for disseminating good practice and for following up with action. There was no acknowledgement of the practical contribution of NGOs in identifying trends and helping victims. Britain is particularly fortunate in the number of NGOs working on human trafficking, so it is disappointing that even in the spirit of the big society such recognition is largely bypassed in the report. In some EU countries, Governments recognise that without NGO involvement as equal partners, with equal status, they would neither make progress nor be able to stem the tide of slavery, let alone help the victims to free themselves. We have yet to see evidence of similar Government recognition in the UK.

What should, therefore, be done? Of course, raising awareness among our voters and everyone else is crucial, but the report omits recent good work. It was silent about the Anti-Slavery Day Act 2010, introduced by the then Member for Totnes. In September of this year, the Council of Europe’s group of experts on action against trafficking in human beings—GRETA—published a report analysing the UK’s trafficking strategy. The GRETA report recommended that much more needs to be done to raise awareness about internal trafficking and the risks that British nationals face of being trafficked around the world.

[Andrew Selous]

May I take the right hon. Gentleman back to his point about the profitability of and the numbers involved in slavery? Bedfordshire police detectives believe that during the past 30 years hundreds of vulnerable men may have been picked up for the site in that county, which absolutely confirms his point.

[Mr Field]

It certainly does, and I am immensely grateful for that intervention, because it gives us another glimpse of the numbers, which we could have had in the report had we had a more effective system in this country, with a rapporteur, who would have wanted to work with such groups from the start.

On the international scene, Israel is taking human trafficking immensely seriously. Israel has not solved slavery as a world problem, but it has largely dealt with it in its own borders—if we pass over the Palestinian issue—although that means that the trade must go somewhere else. People who wish to make money are carefully examining the countries that they can go to, which are lackadaisical in their approach to countering the trade and where traffickers are unlikely to be caught and can tap the large gains.

A key interest of the Government should be to protect more effectively those people who are slaves who come forward to claim their freedom. The Government protect them for a period, which is wonderful, and work with them, but after that they are thrown out on their own, even though we know what awaits them when that happens.

[Mr Dai Havard in the Chair]

I want to ask the Minister for progress in a number of areas. Can he talk to the Prime Minister, who has made human trafficking a priority for the coalition, about the advantages of driving the issue with not only his interdepartmental ministerial group but an independent rapporteur? We could learn something from those countries that have a rapporteur because, if we had one, does the Minister not concede that we might soon begin to get much more frequent and accurate data? Might we not also focus on proactive police investigations? We know what reply he gave my hon. Friend the Member for Slough—that we should all chase after our police and crime commissioners—but what guidance do the Minister and the Government have for rating police activity? What are the Minister’s plans for improved training of police and border staff? What target will he set for prosecutions? Deterrence has not yet featured in Government plans. What plans does he have to examine critically and, therefore, to extend the help and protection we give to those slaves who come forward to claim their freedom?

I end with the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough. Combating human trafficking is meant to be a priority of the coalition Government but, if so, it is one of their best kept secrets. No topic could be more important, not only as a priority for the coalition Government and the House of Commons but for the country. There would be huge support in the country if the Government wished to make it a priority. I hope, therefore, that we witness a Pauline conversion from the Minister and that we leave the debate with much lighter hearts and even greater determination to support him in his work.

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[Gavin Shuker]

Of course I associate myself with that comment, but we must look at Government action in the round, and not just in terms of the sentences available on the statute book, and ask questions about the direction of future legislation.

[Mr Frank Field]

My hon. Friend talked about going to see his police and crime commissioner. We will go to Jane Kennedy, our police commissioner, but she faces huge demands, and a cut budget. She will have data on many other objectives, but where are the data that I can present to her in order to make the issue a priority in Merseyside?

[Gavin Shuker]

My right hon. Friend makes a fantastic and insightful contribution, as ever. The pressures involved in highly evidence-based and research-based operations mean that there is an easy way out, and I do not mean that in a derogatory way. Police and crime commissioners can say, “I have lost 20% of my policing budget, and trafficking is not a priority on which I was elected.” What would make the most difference are clear statements by this and future Governments that tackling abuse of people who are caught up in modern-day slavery is an overriding concern.

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[Mr Harper]

Indeed, I will frame them.

Rather than going through the remarks in the order I had planned, I shall do so in the order my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough raised them. I will deal with his remarks first, because he, with others, picked up the debate and got it going. I take his point, which the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) repeated, about the group’s title. By repeating it, he raised a point that had occurred to me: the Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group on Human Trafficking is not the catchiest of titles. I will go away and reflect on that. Having been in government, he knows that Governments do not come up with catchy ways to describe things.

The right hon. Gentleman might have a good point, but that should not detract from the fact that the group includes not only Ministers from across Government, but members from all the UK’s Governments—the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. We have not been reflected on that, but it is important partly because it addresses the points made about independence. If the UK Government wanted to sweep things under the carpet, there are members from three other Governments, who are not of the same political party, who would not let us.

When I was given the job and told that I was chairing the group, I thought about the arguments for an independent rapporteur and the effectiveness of a group of Ministers. A ministerial group is also effective in ensuring that action is taken, which was my prime reason for being in favour of it. If we want to get things done, whether requiring legislation or otherwise, it is important to have Ministers from across Government working with our colleagues in the other parts of the UK, particularly on an issue that several Members described as one that the Prime Minister takes seriously. If we cannot make things happen, no one in Government can.

I did not understand the criticism from several people about the group not being able to get information from within Government. We are all Ministers in the Government, and if we want to get information from Departments we do not need a statutory basis to do so because we are able to get it. Having thought about it, I genuinely believe that having a group of Ministers is effective in delivering change and making things happen in practice. This is the group’s first annual report, and I accept that it is not perfect. We can do many things to improve it, some of which I will set out.

[Mr Frank Field]

None of us argued for one strategy or the other; we argued for both—the ministerial group backed up by the rapporteur.

[Mr Harper]

I accept that, but I felt slightly beaten up about the question whether the interdepartmental ministerial group was effective. I was also worried by the almost unanimously positive comments from Opposition Members about me and my future career—it is never good when Opposition Members over-praise Ministers; I always think that does us great harm—but I will take them in the spirit in which I am sure they were intended.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead raised the question of data and of really understanding this issue, which is something I have raised internally. The cases referred through the national referral mechanism are only the tip of the iceberg. Globally, reports suggest that many millions of people are affected in the trade. One task that I have given my officials is to crunch those numbers and to understand the true picture, including how that plays out across the country.

As some Members have said—my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire made the point powerfully—and as the NGOs that I have met have echoed, the problem is not just in inner cities or parts of the country where people think this sort of thing goes on. On anti-slavery day, I met several people from what some might call leafy parts of the country, such as Surrey, who had seen this activity happening. They felt that, as my hon. Friend said, it is important to get people to think about the issue, to understand that it might be going on in their street or round the corner, and to be alert to what they should look for.

On data and understanding the problem, it is important to get the public to understand that there is an issue—picking up the point made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty): telling a constituent why it matters to them, and making them understand that—and to focus on it. That, in turn, picks up the point made by the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker) about pressures on police forces and constabularies. People must understand that this is a big problem and that there are interconnections, in that people involved in trafficking are also involved in wider organised crime. This big economic problem generates lots of money that is then used for other criminal activities. It is not a small problem located in one place; it is very wide and police forces ought to take it seriously.

I will not go through this issue at length, but it is worth saying on police and crime commissioners—I take the point made by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that they have been in existence for not quite a month—that the Government are making sure they are aware of their national responsibilities as well as their purely local ones. In other words, they must be aware of the types of crime with a national or international dimension that will impact on them, so that, in setting priorities, they understand that their police forces must think about such matters.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough mentioned the National Crime Agency. It will have within it the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, the Human Trafficking Centre and the Border Policing Command. It will be a repository of good intelligence gathering and an analysis operation. It will have its own operational police and law enforcement officers but, as my hon. Friend said, it will also have the ability, if necessary, to task police forces for particular operations. Clearly, it will be much better if it engages such police forces by debating and explaining the issue and getting them on board voluntarily, but it also has a tasking power that may ultimately be important, certainly in getting people to pay attention, as my hon. Friend rightly said.

My hon. Friend and other Members raised the issue of the protection of children, which the Government take very seriously. The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) spoke about training in the UK Border Force and the UK Border Agency. On meeting front-line Border Force officers who are at the primary checkpoints as people come into the country, and the staff of the UKBA, I have been struck by how aware they are of the child protection issue and the need to be alert to it, of all the signs of children travelling with people who are not their parents, and of what we need to put in place to protect those children. I am not saying we are perfect—we can always do better—but I have been pleasantly surprised by that. Before doing this job, I was not really aware of how much training and expertise is available at the border for those officers as people enter the country. As I have said, I am sure we can do more, but we are very focused on that area.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough also raised the issue of how we look after adult victims of trafficking. We have the contract with the Salvation Army to look after adult victims because there was no existing process for looking after them. There is an established mechanism for child protection that, as my hon. Friend said, is delivered through local government. I absolutely heard what he said about its effectiveness. There have recently been several cases in which—if we are in any doubt—we can see that trafficked children are not always well looked after by local government. I listened carefully to the examples he gave of projects that are under way to find a better approach. I do not want to prejudge their outcomes, but I assure him that I and other members of the ministerial group will consider those results closely to see whether there is a better way. He specifically referred to the Barnado’s pilot project for safe homes for children, and that and various other pilots will provide us with evidence about what works best, and we will be guided by what the evidence shows is effective.

Another thing worth saying is that the failures there have been will drive change in how we deliver care for children generally. Not only have trafficked children not been as well protected in the care sector as they might have been, but many UK-based children who have not been trafficked end up not being well looked after. We will need to see what various reports suggest the Government should do instead before we respond. The protection of children is one of the most important things—my hon. Friend said it was the single most important thing—and that feeling was generally shared by the Members who have spoken.

My hon. Friend also flagged up that the report did not specifically mention the all-party group on human trafficking or the Human Trafficking Foundation. I assure him that, if so, that very much falls into the cock-up and not the conspiracy camp. There was certainly no deliberate intention not to mention them, and he was right to put on the record what he said about the Human Trafficking Foundation, which I have already echoed. He was too modest to mention, although others did, the excellent work of the all-party parliamentary group—that is not a catchy description either. It is important and helpful to get together people from across Parliament not only to take evidence, but to visit other countries and see what goes on. In a previous debate, my hon. Friend invited me to attend a meeting of the all-party group and if he wishes me to do so at an appropriate time, I would be delighted to attend, both to listen and to talk.

The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk mentioned child guardians, which we have not introduced because there are existing mechanisms. However, I have signed off funding for the Refugee Council and the Children’s Society, which he mentioned, to undertake a joint independent scoping review of the practical care arrangements for trafficked children in care. That will look at the experience of trafficked children and practitioners to find examples of how people have been treated in the care system, and will report by the end of spring 2013. When we commissioned the report, we wanted something that told us about the experience of real children who have been through the system rather than a piece of desk research. We will look very carefully at the evidence to see whether it leads us to change policy in this area.

There are trafficked victims who end up undertaking criminal activity. We want to protect them and ensure that they are not turned into criminals. Let me be clear: if the circumstances of the arrest, or the evidence referred to by a prosecutor, suggest that someone may have been trafficked, the guidance is clear, as was I think acknowledged. In such a case, prosecutors should obtain further information, and work with the police to get more evidence. Where there is evidence that a suspect has been under duress, the prosecutor should not proceed. That is clear in theory, but I understand the concerns of Members about the extent to which that theoretical plan is carried through in practice.

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[Mr Bone]

I am very grateful to you, Mr Havard, for allowing me to sum up what I think has been one of the most interesting debates that I have attended. It has benefited greatly from the fact that the speeches have been thoughtful, constructive and in no way party political. I thank all the Members who have spoken for that; of course, they are all members of the all-party group on human trafficking.

I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), for her comments, which I thought were useful, constructive and expressed in the right spirit.

Briefly, I want to thank the Members who spoke, starting with the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). I thank her for getting off her sick bed, coming in and powerfully making her point, partly in relation to the rapporteur and partly in relation to domestic visas. I will make a quick comment on domestic visas. I say to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), who is one of the deputy chairs of the all-party group, that a debate on that subject would be a very good debate that we should press for. The Backbench Business Committee method is something that the all-party group should look to use in the new year. That would allow us to debate all the issues and to highlight the different opinions on domestic visas.

What I recognised from the debate was the fact that, although there was no collusion, everybody from the Back Benches acknowledged the need for an independent rapporteur. We will come back to that issue again, especially if we feel that the Inter-Departmental Ministerial Group on Human Trafficking does not do its job. If the Minister does not change the group’s name, that will be good enough reason for anyone to think that we need a rapporteur.

I thank all Members for speaking. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) told an extraordinary story, and he put it most powerfully. Anyone listening to that story realises that such events can happen anywhere.

The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who unusually made a prepared written speech for this debate—

[Mr Frank Field]

Never before.

[Mr Bone]

Indeed; it is unique. The right hon. Gentleman’s speech was really powerful, but everyone who spoke did so exceptionally well. I am very grateful to everyone who attended today and to the Backbench Business Committee.