Slavery

Baroness Young of Hornsey Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I heard a voice say, “A good question”, and it is indeed a good question. It is an abuse that is a form of slavery, which this Government cannot tolerate. Let us be clear; this is not an easy area. Those involved in trafficking can be cunning and deceitful, and there is widespread use of false documents and fraudulent job offers. We need to be clever in the way in which we handle the issue, which is why we are using information and intelligence to catch these people and why cross-agency interaction is so important.

[Baroness Young of Hornsey]

My Lords, can the Minister tell the House whether his department has any intention of introducing independent monitoring to make sure that the cutting of red tape in small businesses and commercial organisations does not impact on the progress that we have made so far in cutting down trafficking and slavery?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

I am the Minister in the Home Office responsible for the red tape challenge, so I will bear that point in mind. It is a challenge within the Home Office because, in essence, we are a regulatory department. We would want to do nothing that made the risk of human trafficking the greater.