Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what data they hold on the route of travel of people illegally trafficked into the UK.

The Government is resolute in its commitment to tackle Organised Immigration Crime. In the closely related crimes of people smuggling and human trafficking, our law enforcement partners bear down on the Organised Criminal Groups (OCGs) who facilitate illegal travel to the UK and who exploit vulnerable migrants, often treating them as commodities and knowingly putting people in life-threatening situations.

We work closely with international law enforcement partners to share intelligence data and dismantle these networks to disrupt the illegal movement of people and the various routes they take to enter the UK.

We have a dedicated Organised Immigration Crime Taskforce, led by the National Crime Agency (NCA), committed to dismantling OCGs engaged in immigration crime. The Taskforce is active in 17 countries worldwide, and its activities include supporting judicial and intelligence capacity building in source and transit countries, and intelligence sharing in key near Europe countries to disrupt people smuggling.

We also share information about criminality around small boats between agencies. This includes the Joint Intelligence Cell in France and international networks of both NCA and Home Office. Since July 2020, the Joint Intelligence Cell has taken down 17 small boat OCGs and secured over 400 arrests – taking the criminals behind these crossings off the street. Our cooperation with the French has also prevented more than 23,000 migrant crossing attempts.

Alongside our efforts to tackle organised immigration crime we continue to strengthen our efforts to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking. The UK works with partner countries and international law enforcement authorities to disrupt criminal networks and protect potential victims from being trafficked and exploited in the UK.