Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many children in Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council area are in social care as victims of child trafficking.

The National Referral Mechanism (NRM) is the UK’s system for identifying and providing access to support for potential victims of modern slavery/human trafficking.

The Home Office publishes quarterly and annual statistics regarding the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), which show the number of referrals made by Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council by age at exploitation of the potential victim, which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/national-referral-mechanism-statistics

Please note that these statistics will not show all cases where the local authority is responsible for the potential victim as other organisations may have made referrals for children living in the Local Authority area.