Anti-Slavery Day

Damian Green Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee and, indeed, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart). She instituted the debate from the Back Benches, as she said, but she was miraculously and rightly transformed to the Front Bench before this debate, so she can now reply on behalf of the Opposition. In listening to this debate, I have been struck not only by how passionate, but by how erudite many speeches have been. There is a huge amount of expertise in the House on this vital issue, as Members of all parties have said, and I will certainly take that away with me as we contemplate future policy.

We are here because, although the first anti-slavery day fell on 18 October, the Government have decided to align Britain’s anti-slavery day with the existing EU anti-slavery day, partly as a reminder of the need for international co-ordination in this regard—a point made by the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) and many other Members in all parts of the House. I am sure that Anthony Steen would approve of our alignment with the EU in this context, although I am less sure that his successor as chairman of the all-party group would be quite as enthusiastic.

Anyone outside the House who is listening to the debate or will read the report in Hansard may be led to believe that Anthony Steen is no longer with us. I am happy to assure everyone that he was e-mailing me this morning, and I hope to see him somewhere on Monday so that we can jointly celebrate anti-slavery day.

The day will provide a focus for not just the work of Government, but—this is important—the contribution of the many voluntary sector groups that raise awareness and deal with the practical consequences of this terrible crime.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Damian Green]

I will give way once, but that will be it.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am most grateful to the Minister. Will he also acknowledge the voluntary groups in the countries from which many people are trafficked? This week we have had the honour of a visit by Joseph D’souza of the Dalit Freedom Network, who will be in my constituency tonight. The network does tremendous work in India.

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend has made a very good point. There are voluntary groups all over the world.

At the beginning of the debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) said that prevention was essentially better than cure. In the short time available to me, I want to inform the House of the future direction of trafficking policy.

We all agree that trafficking is an appalling crime which treats people as commodities and exploits them for criminal gain. Combating human trafficking is a priority for the Government; what we have been discussing today is how it can best be achieved. We are seeking to improve the United Kingdom’s response to the wider threat from organised crime, which includes trafficking. The Government’s consultation paper “Policing in the 21st century” sets out our intention to produce a new strategy on organised crime, as well as referring to the creation of a national crime agency to make the fight against organised crime more effective. We therefore have an opportunity to ensure that there is specific consideration of the challenges involved in fighting human trafficking.

The Government intend to produce a new strategy on combating human trafficking, which will take up many of the points raised in the debate. I am sorry that I do not have time to deal with each point individually. The new strategy will be aligned with and published alongside the strategy on organised crime. It will reiterate the Government’s intention to take a comprehensive approach to combating trafficking, both by combating the traffickers and by looking after the victims. It will mark a greater focus on combating the organised crime groups behind the trade. I agree with the Chairman of the Select Committee that an end-to-end approach is necessary.

The new strategy has four main components. It will enhance our ability to act early, before the harm has reached the UK; there will be smarter, multi-agency action at our border; there will be more co-ordination of our policing effort inside Britain; and victim care arrangements will be improved. Let me deal with those components in turn.

Human trafficking is obviously a cross-border crime, and our earliest opportunity to counter the threat is therefore in the source countries and the transit regions. By intervening early, we can prevent harm from being done to people and reduce the impact here in the UK. As many Members have pointed out, interventions abroad can appear far removed from a flat or a brothel somewhere in a British city or small town—or, indeed, in a factory or farm where people are exploited for labour services—but we know that early intervention produces results. For example, a three-year trafficking investigation by the Serious Organised Crime Agency and Lithuanian police, which concluded in 2008, led to the dismantling of six crime groups in the UK, prison sentences totalling 145 years for 17 people in the UK and Lithuania, and the recovery of 32 victims. That is the kind of action that is needed all over the world.

What we are proposing is to bring together our political and diplomatic activities along with our enforcement efforts. We want to ensure they share common objectives, focused on places where criminal operations are based. That will be done in partnership with the source countries. We will therefore look at the full range of interventions open to us. Through political and diplomatic dialogue, we will build political will to combat trafficking and translate that into initiatives on the ground in other countries. We will protect potential victims by intercepting the traffickers before their activities impact on the UK. That is the first step.

The second step is at our border, which is the next line of defence against traffickers. As many Members have said, combating trafficking at the border is difficult, not least because victims will often be unaware of the traffickers’ real intentions. Increased vigilance and more effective deterrence and interceptions are key. This will be one of the tasks of the national crime agency and its border police command. We want to embed that thought inside the new BPC in order to enhance our response at our borders. We will also look at how we can build on the success of the multi-agency child safeguarding and investigation teams at some of the UK’s ports, and we will continue to roll out the e-Borders programme. That captures passenger and crew movements into and out of the UK and can be used to identify and intercept those suspected of a number of offences including trafficking.

The third step is inside the UK. Our domestic law enforcement response to trafficking will remain a vital part of our overall enforcement efforts. Significant progress has been made in raising awareness of trafficking and the capability to combat it among police forces through enforcement operations and mandatory training on trafficking for all new police officers. That is a step forward. The UK Human Trafficking Centre is an important resource in helping police forces by offering tactical advice, co-ordination and intelligence. Through the new strategy we will ensure that there is more effective strategic co-ordination of our existing efforts and that that leads to more targeted enforcement action on the ground. What that means in practice is that there needs to be clarity about the roles and responsibilities of police forces in combating human trafficking on the streets of Britain and better co-ordination, for example through tools like the control strategy on organised crime, which provides a framework for action by law enforcement agencies.

The fourth step is victim care, which is very important. As I have said, we want to have a greater focus on enforcement, but our aim is to prevent harm being done to people. Trafficking is a covert crime and the victims are often unaware that they are being trafficked until it is too late. When that happens, we need to ensure that we have the right arrangements in place to meet the care needs of victims. That will remain central to our approach. The Government are committed to ensuring that the UK meets its obligations to victims as set out under the Council of Europe convention on trafficking, which was signed a few years ago. More than 700 potential victims were referred in the first year after the convention was implemented, which is a significant achievement. We are committed to improving our response. We also plan to introduce a more effective system of victim care that takes better account of the needs of individual victims and ensures that each identified victim receives an appropriate level of support. We will announce further details of these proposals shortly. I should add that many practical suggestions were made during the course of the debate, which I will take up and feed into the process.

Of course, the comprehensive spending review will be announced next week. As we have already made clear in relation to the NCA, we will make sure that more law enforcement activity is undertaken against more organised criminals and at reduced cost. To achieve that, we will prioritise resources by targeting the most serious criminals and being more joined-up, particularly in our activities overseas; we often have different agencies operating in foreign capitals and other large cities who do not work together as effectively as they should.

The European directive has been a dominant theme in many Members’ contributions. The draft directive does not contain any operational co-operation measures from which we think we would benefit. It will improve the way in which some other EU states combat trafficking, but it would make little difference to the way we combat it. As I have said however, the directive is not yet finalised so if we conclude later that it would help us fight human trafficking, we can opt in then.

In conclusion, we will re-focus our efforts and make sure that this country maintains its reputation as a world leader in trying to end the disgusting and unacceptable survival of slavery in the modern world.