Question to the Home Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report Reasonable grounds decisions in the NRM – who has been impacted by the change to the decision-making threshold?, published by Justice and Care, and what are the reasons why some groups of potential modern slavery victims receive disproportionate levels of negative reasonable grounds decisions.

All NRM decisions are made on an individual basis, carried out by trained specialist decision-makers in the Competent Authorities, in line with the Modern Slavery Statutory Guidance for England and Wales (under section 49 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015) and the non-statutory guidance for Scotland and Northern Ireland. The guidance is underpinned by The Slavery and Human Trafficking Definition of Victim Regulations 2022 and in accordance with the UK's international legal obligations.

We recognise the challenges associated with the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and have made significant strides to implement changes. This Government recruited 200 new staff to clear the NRM decision backlog and as of March 2025, the backlog is now less than half the size it was at its worst in 2022.

On 30 April this year, we also published our improved and simplified NRM referral form following extensive feedback from over 450 stakeholders. The new referral form will improve the quality of referrals, better reflect victims’ experiences, and support more informed and consistent decision-making.