Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make it her policy to reinstate the multi agency assurance panels overseeing the work of the national referral mechanism for victims of modern slavery; and if she will make a statement.

Multi-Agency Assurance Panels (MAAPs) were introduced in April 2019, their purpose being to review negative Conclusive Grounds decisions in the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) prior to the service of a decision.

On account of the ongoing pressure on the times taken to make decisions in the NRM, we decided to remove the MAAPs from the decision-making timeline in December. The Government remains committed to identifying and supporting victims of modern slavery and it is our intention that the assurance function provided by MAAPs will be replaced with a remodelled assurance process. This will aim to continue to drive improvements in NRM decision-making in a way that does not add time to service of outcomes.