Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of cross-border police co-operation with (a) French and (b) other European counterparts in countering human trafficking and people smuggling.

Law enforcement cooperation with French and other European partners is strong and takes place through a variety of activities. We have increased our intelligence sharing and operational cooperation with the French through the establishment of the Joint Centre for Information and Coordination (CCIC) in Calais.

Through the Organised Immigration Crime Taskforce, we have deployed officers from the National Crime Agency, Border Force, Immigration Enforcement and Crown Prosecution Service to numerous European countries to work with law enforcement and criminal justice partners on tackling the organised crime groups who facilitate people smuggling. Key to our cooperation with European partners is the intelligence exchange through the European Migrant Smuggling Centre (EMSC), which leads Europol on organised immigration crime.

The UK Liaison Bureau at Europol is currently supporting a significant number of cross-border operations on human trafficking focusing on organised crime groups which operate across the UK and other EU countries. In addition to these the UK has used its position as chair of the Europol EMPACT (European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats) group on Trafficking in Human Beings to increase the operational impact of our activity across the EU and in key partner countries.