Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information her Department holds on the number of victims of child sexual trafficking in each local authority in each of the last five years.

The National Referral Mechanism was established in 2009 and is managed by the National Crime Agency’s UK Human Trafficking Centre. The Centre uses the mechanism to collect data on potential victims of trafficking, including a breakdown of child referrals by type of exploitation.

The published data for the number of minors referred to the NRM as potential victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation are not broken down by local authority area, but by first responder in each case, which may be a charity,
police force, agency or local authority.

Statistics are published on the National Crime Agency website: http://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/publications/national-referral-mechanism-statistics

Archived statistics are published on the National Archives website: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130703102353/http:/www.soca.gov.uk/about-soca/about-the-ukhtc/national-referral-mechanism/statistics