Major Incident in Essex

Diana Johnson Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend raises some important points. There are a number of ways of providing support for lorry drivers and others. A great deal of work is done through road haulage associations in the UK and across the EU to provide information and intelligence about what to do in situations of this nature, and also about how they can protect themselves from trafficking. If there is anything else that my hon. Friend would specifically like to know about the Home Office’s and Border Force’s work and about how we collaborate with many other organisations, I shall be happy to write to him.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Hull has a long and proud tradition of fighting the evils of human trafficking and slavery. Many of my constituents have been in touch to say how shocked they are about what happened in Essex. They want to know whether additional checks will be carried out at the port of Hull, particularly on refrigerated containers, because we now know that the traffickers seem to be turning their attention to ports on the east coast.

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. She will know, with the port in her own constituency, that various challenges have now been highlighted. It is important to acknowledge that those who are trafficking people are trying to exploit any vulnerabilities in any aspects of port security, such as, as we have seen, with the refrigerated lorries. Given the work taking place specifically with Border Force right now, I would like to drop the hon. Lady a line and at least keep her updated on the changes that will be forthcoming with regard to the port in Hull.