Trafficking: Children

Baroness Doocey Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Doocey]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether there has been an increase in the number of cases of child trafficking reported since the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was passed.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, the Modern Slavery Act received Royal Assent on 26 March 2015. The first package of measures was implemented on 31 July 2015. The number of children referred into the national referral mechanism has increased year on year, but it is too early to tell whether there has been an increase in the number of child trafficking cases reported to the NRM since the Modern Slavery Act was passed.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that response. I should like to ask about the Home Office counting rules used by the police to record crime statistics, which has been recently updated to take account of the Modern Slavery Act. Will he please explain why there is no specific category to record child exploitation cases, such as domestic servitude? Instead, these crimes against adults and children are lumped together, which will obscure the recording, investigation and monitoring of these heinous crimes against children. Surely this is not the way the Modern Slavery Act was supposed to work.