Parliamentary Representation

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I was proud to serve as a member of the Speaker’s Conference. I apologise to the House for the fact that I will not be here at the end of the debate, because I shall be chairing a charity function.

All hon. Members have agreed that a more representative Parliament is better for politics, above all because of the issue of justice and so that everybody has an equal chance of being elected. It builds people’s confidence in democracy to see people such as me in Parliament. It also, and I do not think that we have talked enough about this, leads to better decisions. That is at the heart of the matter.

My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) told me that when she was first elected child care was not regarded as a political issue and Parliament never debated it. She and my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) were among those who made sure that the issue was normalised in politics.

Shortly after I was elected in 1997, I telephoned the Clerk of the Select Committee on Defence to research how much of a difference women had made in politics. In its 17-year life, that Committee had never had a woman member. There were two women members after the 1997 election. The Clerk said, “Fiona, of course there is a difference. We always used to talk just about weapons and ammunition, and now we talk about the families of the soldiers.” We know now how critical the family members of those who are fighting in battles overseas are to their success. Having different voices in Parliament changes the terms of the debate.

In the 1997 Parliament, which recorded the biggest difference in the number of women, we saw our effect in the Budgets. In the Budgets of ’97, ’98 and ’99, the amount of money in women’s purses increased by £5.30 a week, compared with an increase of £2.30 in men’s wallets. Having more women does not automatically bring that result. We can see, depressingly, that the cost of recent Budgets and the last comprehensive spending review to women has been £8.80 a week, compared with a cost of £4.20 for men.

This issue is not just about representation but about power. Women can have power, but we need to ensure that we have it. One thing that I admired the Prime Minister for saying in opposition was that he aimed for 30% of his Cabinet to be women. There is not enough progress on that aim. In Parliament, one has much more power when one is a Minister. I am shocked that 11 out of 24 Departments have no women Ministers. I urge the Minister for Equalities, who will respond to the debate, to take action on that. Many of the women Ministers are in the other place. There is a shortage of women’s voices in Departments, and not just in the little Departments. In the Ministry of Justice, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office there are no women Ministers. I urge the women on the Government Benches to do whatever they can to change that. If they do not, we will carry on having stupid decisions.

This debate has been partly about the problem of women-only shortlists. I do not regard them as a problem. The only person who has ever called me a quota woman is the woman who stood for the party that held the seat before I took it. Nobody has called me that since. Women shortlists are a tactic, but that does not mean that people who have got here in that way are diminished. There are other tactics that can work, but I do not share the optimism of the women on the Government Benches about the progress that their parties have made.

The hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has something to be proud of in the representation of ethnic minorities on the Conservative Benches, which has changed enormously. I respect the Conservative party for that change. It did not happen through quotas or anything like that, but through a psychological change in the Conservative party, which I genuinely welcome.

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) for her work on the internship programme. We need to consider the fact that, as The Daily Telegraph put it, the main qualifications of people in this House are having gone to public school, having gone to Oxbridge and having been in a profession. Two of the three apply to me, although the representation of my profession, school teaching, has reduced. We need more progress on getting more people from manual occupations into the House.

In that regard, I would say that Conservative Members tend to disrespect not only women-only shortlists but the trade union movement. The working-class members of the House have overwhelmingly been able to come here because of the work of the trade unions, and we need to respect the ability of the movement to bring people into politics. It will be one of the ways in which we can get change in the future.

Extradition

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Thursday 24th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Mr Slaughter]

As so often, I agree with everything that my hon. Friend has said, and I will discuss the length of incarceration in a moment. However, I think that my hon. Friend was also perhaps alluding to the circumstances of the treatment of Babar Ahmad: he was first arrested in 2003, and by the time he reached the police station he had sustained at least 73 forensically recorded injuries, including bleeding in his ears and urine. Six days later, he was released without charge. As we know, he was subsequently paid £60,000 compensation by the Metropolitan police for the assaults, although there was no apology and, I think, no admission. That would be shocking enough in itself, but of course in August 2004 Babar Ahmad was rearrested and he has remained in custody ever since.

I am addressing my comments effectively to the text of the petition, not to the offences alleged against Babar Ahmad but to the case that is being put by his family and the 140,000 people who have signed the petition, which I shall read as it is fairly short:

“Babar Ahmad is a British Citizen who has been detained in the UK for 7 years without trial fighting extradition to the USA under the controversial no-evidence-required Extradition Act 2003. In June 2011, the Houses of Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights urged the UK government to change the law so that Babar Ahmad’s perpetual threat of extradition is ended without further delay. Since all of the allegations against Babar Ahmad are said to have taken place in the UK, we call upon the British Government to put him on trial in the UK and support British Justice for British Citizens.”

That is the petition that has attracted 140,000 signatures.

The word Kafkaesque is somewhat overused in the media and in Parliament too, but it probably does apply to this case, where somebody has been arrested and held in high-security prisons for seven years without—clearly—any charge and without, as far as we are aware, any intention by the British authorities to charge. Therefore, the petition asks that the British prosecuting authorities take the lead and make a decision to go ahead and charge him here, if there is sufficient evidence to do so.

The excellent report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights that was published in June deals with many of these issues; a key one is forum. We know that there is provision on the statute book that would allow a forum test to be introduced. The introduction of such a test would immediately deal with cases such as that of Babar Ahmad and resolve the issue. Again, I strongly believe that the House should have an opportunity to make a decision on that matter if the Government are not prepared to make that decision.

Babar Ahmad’s situation is intolerable. It has been described by one of the judges who considered the case as an “ordeal”. As I have already said, I am making no comment at all, and indeed the petition makes no comment at all, about the strength of the evidence about the nature of the offences, because that evidence has not been made publicly available. I am making a comment that somebody—a British citizen—has spent seven years in high-security prisons without any charge being brought against them. That fact alone should shock all Members who are present in Westminster Hall today.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has stressed the fact that Babar Ahmad has been in prison for seven years. I do not think that everybody who is concerned about his case recognises that that is the equivalent of the time served by someone sentenced to 14 years in prison. According to the sentencing guidelines, that is the kind of sentence issued to someone who is found guilty of grievous bodily harm, or carrying a weapon that they had previously brought to the scene, and so on. Normally, it would be very serious offences that would acquire such a long time in jail.

[Mr Slaughter]

I entirely agree and that is why I say, notwithstanding the points that have been made about the need to address the substantive issue as well as individual cases, that Babar Ahmad’s case is unusual for that particular reason. Although I have a great deal of respect and sympathy for other hon. Members who have spoken on behalf of their constituents, or about other issues that have been raised with them, I do not believe that there is any case that is as extreme as Babar Ahmad’s, because of the simple fact that somebody has lost their liberty for that time, which—whatever the outcome—will never be regained.

I conclude on the point that there seems to be general agreement. The number of Members present shows that this debate is worth while, and that it needs to go further if the Government are not prepared to act. I am afraid that there has been some shuffling of responsibility between the Backbench Business Committee and the Government, particularly in relation to the Babar Ahmad petition, which, with 140,000 signatures is, I think, one of the top three. We have had debates on the Floor of the House on important issues that have arisen from petitions with fewer signatures, so there is a clear case for Babar Ahmad’s detention to be debated there too. We can then see both from Members’ contributions and in a vote whether they feel the same antipathy as me, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting and others about how the case is proceeding—or rather not proceeding. As things stand, more years could pass without resolution of the case, and we, as people who are here to protect the constitution of this country, should all be deeply ashamed of that. If nobody, including the Backbench Business Committee and the Leader of the House, is able or prepared to deal with the matter, Members collectively should insist that it is debated and voted upon on the Floor of the House.

Gangs and Youth Violence

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. We have not addressed it in the review, but I shall be happy to consider it. I pay tribute to the work done by Nottinghamshire police in defending both people and premises. As he says, they came under significant and sustained attack during what was a very difficult time.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

It is the judgment of Slough’s local police commander, Richard Humphrey, that the reason there was not more serious violence in the town that I represent, despite the risks posed by such factors as gang membership, was the contribution of Aik Saath and other youth organisations. What help is the Home Secretary offering youth organisations that can prevent problems of this kind?

[Mrs May]

As I have said, specific help will be provided in some parts of the country. Funds will be made available for projects that help young people to turn their lives around, and we will concentrate on the areas where the most significant problems exist.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

My hon. Friend makes another good point. Part of our consultation involves ensuring that those who arrive here to get married come into a family that has sufficient means to support them. One of the problems that we inherited was the fact that the institution of marriage was being exploited to circumvent the immigration rules. In tightening up on this, we are not only restoring confidence in the immigration system but helping to bolster the institution of marriage. Both of those are extremely worthwhile efforts.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

But is it not right that husbands and wives should be able to live together? Will the Minister assure me that spouses applying in countries with very few English language testing centres will not be kept apart from their spouses in this country simply because they cannot prove their competence in English? That is illustrated by the case of the wife of a constituent of mine who has been applying in Brazil for months to prove that she can speak sufficiently good English to join him here.

[Damian Green]

If the hon. Lady wishes to write to me about that individual case, I will take a look at it. We have established a network of testing stations around the world so that people are able to take the test. I hope that she will support the concept that, if people come to settle here, they should be able to speak English at a basic level so that they can integrate into British life. If they cannot do that, they can end up leading separate lives, which can cause many problems, especially in our inner cities.

Women (Government Policies)

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Mensch]

I apologise profusely for ever having suggested such a thing, Mr Deputy Speaker. I shall try to mind my language in future, as my mother taught me to.

It is this Government who are looking at ways of challenging inequalities in the workplace—

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Mensch]

I shall be happy to do so after I have made a little more progress.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

It is on this point.

[Mrs Mensch]

I have not made it yet. However, I will happily give way.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

First, at no point were what the hon. Lady describes as “sex worker jobs” advertised in jobcentres. Secondly, the advertisements were not displayed for the entire term of the last Government. There had been a court decision that jobs in the broader sex industry ought to be advertised in jobcentres, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) and I pressed for it to be changed. I think that the hon. Lady’s claim that that was an achievement by the present Government is fundamentally dishonest, and that it was equally wrong for her to say that the advertisements continued for 13 years. [Interruption.] I am sure that it was done by accident.

[Mrs Mensch]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but I must tell her that I reject her assessment. In the Welfare Reform Bill, the Government have introduced legislation to close the loophole. If the Labour Government did not like the direction in which the courts were moving, it was always open to them to introduce legislation and to do so quickly. They would have been supported by my right hon. and hon. Friends, but they chose to sit on their hands.

I commend the hon. Lady for having done some of the work, but I condemn her party’s Government for not having done it quickly enough. Labour Members cannot escape the fact that it is this Government who have put right that shocking affront to women’s dignity. It is also this Government who are introducing flexible parental leave between parents, and this Government who are working with businesses to bring about transparency in pay so that the massive gap between men’s and women’s wages—which was 16.4% under Labour—can be reduced.

The hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) made an opportunistic reference to plea bargaining and shorter sentences for rape. It may be an idea that will not go very far, but the present Government are at least trying to introduce measures to tackle the appalling rates of rape conviction that we saw under the hon. Lady’s party. We saw zero ideas from that Government, and zero action to tackle those conviction rates.

Human Trafficking

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

As is usual on this subject, we have had an excellent debate with a great deal of consensus among Members of all parties. I thank the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr Field) for bringing this subject before the House once again. As he pointed out, it was an accident that we discussed it only last week, but it is often helpful for Members of Parliament to be able to follow up on a previous debate. Some issues in the last debate were not resolved, and I hope that when the Minister responds, we will hear some of the answers that have been re-requested during this debate.

I welcomed the hon. Gentleman’s call for a multi-agency, one-stop approach. I agree that we need a strategy: not just broad aims, but specific commitments. In order to deliver that as the House and society would want, we need a rapporteur of sufficient independence for everyone to have confidence in the information that they produce. I welcome all those aspects of his remarks.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) reminded us that to tackle trafficking, we must have an effective strategy for driving down demand for the products of trafficking. I was concerned to hear his remarks about STOP UK, and I hope that the Minister will deal with that in his response.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) reminded us that the women and children involved in trafficking are treated as commodities, like used cars. It is not enough for us to say the right words across parties; we need action to tackle the problem, and specifically action to prevent the threat from coming to London along with the Olympics in a year’s time.

My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) remarked on the Home Office’s problems in managing the process and advised us of the opportunity to consider whether what Scotland is doing on child guardianship can provide models or lessons for the rest of the United Kingdom.

In my view, we are a little complacent about our quality of victim care. I was rather shocked to read a research report by the London School of Economics and the university of Goettingen suggesting that the United Kingdom was less effective than Albania at tackling human trafficking. The reason why the report came to that conclusion involved our treatment of victims. Most of the study was done while the POPPY project, which we all admire, was providing victim services, but the researchers felt that the UK habit of convicting the victims of trafficking—we have heard about children being convicted of cannabis cultivation, for example—means that the quality of our trafficking strategy is less good than that of many countries that we would expect to outperform.

[Mr MacShane]

My hon. Friend mentioned the London School of Economics. Is she aware of its feminist political theory course, taught by Professor Anne Phillips? In week 8 of the course, students study prostitution. The briefing says:

“If we consider it legitimate for women to hire themselves out as low-paid and often badly treated cleaners, why is it not also legitimate for them to hire themselves out as prostitutes?”

If a professor at the London School of Economics cannot make the distinction between a cleaning woman and a prostituted woman, we are filling the minds of our young students with the most poisonous drivel.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I share my right hon. Friend’s view about those attitudes. I hope that the LSE provides sufficient contest to Professor Phillips’s frankly nauseating views on that issue.

To return to victim care, one of my absolute concerns is that victims should be supported to be identified as victims. I am anxious that the national referral mechanism requires a referral, through a multi-tick-box questionnaire, by an appropriate authority, does not accept all attempts at referral and does not always make good decisions. During our recent debate, I asked the Minister whether he would ensure that the new victim care organisations—the Salvation Army and its subcontractors—were supported in challenging decisions under the national referral mechanism if victims were not initially identified as such, and that they were funded to support those people. The experience of the POPPY project is that many trafficked victims were not originally given reasonable-grounds decisions or conclusive decisions on their trafficking status.

The Minister reminded me that

“support providers are asked to, and helped to, provide information about victims’ experiences and circumstances to the competent authority precisely to ensure that the correct NRM decision is reached”.—[Official Report, 9 May 2011; Vol. 527, c. 994.]

I hoped, in the cut and thrust of debate, that that was a positive answer, but my view on reflection is that it is not. I would like a specific commitment from him today that if an organisation supporting a victim helps that victim challenge a decision by the NRM, it will be funded to support the victim. One of the tasks of such organisations, if they believe professionally that someone is a victim of trafficking, is to advocate on their behalf with the competent authorities. I hope that he can give us that assurance.

In addition, I am concerned, as are other hon. Members, about the transparency of the process. The Serious Organised Crime Agency has not produced an annual report since Jacqui Smith was Home Secretary. We do not have any compelling data about decisions under the NRM or enforcement actions taken by police. One reason for calling for a rapporteur is to ensure that such data exist.

The Minister suggested that the role of rapporteur could properly be fulfilled by the inter-ministerial group, the NRM and the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre. At the moment, that is not happening. Will he make a commitment during this debate to a specific mechanism for ensuring transparency? Unless we have a formal rapporteur charged with providing that transparency, we cannot properly interrogate what the Government are doing.

A specific example is the disappearance of children from care, which Members have mentioned. If we believe that local authorities are providing adequate guardianship services, can we please have a national study of how many trafficked children are in local authority care and of which local authorities lose children and how many, and a report to Parliament on how those issues are handled?

The Minister makes a reasonable point when he says that it is possible for the directive’s guardianship requirements to be fulfilled by local authority responsibilities. I think that that could be possible. I am not saying that his decision to do that is mere penny-pinching—although it obviously is, partly because of pressure on funds—but it cannot be done under the present arrangement, because so many local authorities are, frankly, incompetent in this area. We do not know how many are involved or which ones are making good progress. I hope that the Minister will commit to that, because without that kind of transparency, any claim to fulfil a rapporteur-type function is unfounded.

My final concern relates to the role of the police. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk mentioned how Vic Hogg was invited to address the all-party group on the trafficking of women and children, but did not turn up because apparently, at the last moment, he did not have a job. I have spoken to representatives from civil society organisations involved in this field. They feel that meetings with the Home Office to discuss the strategy have been frustrating, disorganised and unclear.

I do not believe that the Minister wants a disorganised and unclear strategy—I am not accusing him of a deliberate policy. Nor do I believe that he wants to exclude those excellent organisations—ECPAT UK, the POPPY Project, the Salvation Army, the Medaille Trust and so on—from contributing to the strategy. I am concerned, however, that there is a real risk, because the former strategy was extremely specific and connected police operations, which have been the most powerful way of discovering the extent of trafficking.

The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster has pointed out how the research is not very good, because the subject is an illegal activity. Actions by the police have been more effective. They have illustrated more powerfully the range of trafficking and where it is to be found, and have led to some successful prosecutions. I am concerned that, at present, we do not have any nationally directed operations, and that the consequence of that will be that we will lose expertise among the police.

I hope that the Minister can reassure us that, even if the Home Office does not wish, at present, to direct police forces to mount those kinds of national operations, it will support and enable them to do so. Without Operation Golf, the excessive trafficking of children from the town of Tandarei in Romania, many of whom were trafficked into my constituency, and the grotesque profits made by criminals in that town, would have continued unabated.

Strategic national interventions that are properly directed can protect people more effectively than a strategy and the warm words that we are able to produce in this Chamber. I believe that we are all on the same side, but we need a strategy to ensure that the shared ambition to eradicate this modern form of slavery actually works in practice.

Trafficking in Human Beings

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I welcome the Government’s decision. We asked for it some 40 times before they decided to do it, but that does not make the decision any less welcome. It is a recognition of the need to work between countries in this area of international abuse of human rights. Getting more effective collaboration between countries is critical if we are effectively to drive down the extent of human trafficking.

I genuinely welcome what the Government have done, but I think there is still a gap between refining the law, creating the right procedures and perfecting the administrative procedures that happen on the ground. If we look at our record on apprehending traffickers, we find that the numbers apprehended remain unconvincing. There is a huge gap between the estimated number of traffickers and the number of prosecutions. Victims largely remain invisible unless they are uncovered as a result of raids. Some victims have been identified through the national referral mechanism, but I am concerned about the way in which the NRM seems to have an attrition rate of about 50% after the initial recognition and 50% on the final recognition. Every organisation working in this field believes that a huge number of victims have not yet been identified.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that although, as we heard from the Minister, there are hotspots around the country, there is a danger of forgetting that this can be a problem absolutely everywhere? There is a great deal of unreported trafficking in areas that might not be hotspots but still need to be the focus of Government attention.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I fear that I probably represent a hotspot—one of the few constituencies in which successful prosecutions for child trafficking have been launched—yet I recall hearing a police officer from rural Dorset talking about his experience of finding in a local brothel women who had been trafficked. Police officers involved in the post-Ipswich work were shocked at the number of trafficked women they found in brothels in very nice parts of East Anglia. I think it is clear that this is happening all over the country and that we are not yet drilling down to the bottom of the problem. I know that trafficking is not just an issue across international borders, as it also occurs within the UK. I welcome the fact that the directive reflects that, so that we will be able to deal with internal trafficking around the country, which is a critical issue.

My concern is that, without targets—Pentameter 1 and 2 provided them—the police do not have sufficient incentives to deal with the problem. I agree with the Minister that it is becoming more mainstream police business, but I also know that some police forces have not learned what we have just been reminded of by the hon. Member for Stockton South (James Wharton)—that the trafficking is happening here. It is not given sufficient priority and many victims fail to be identified.

[Mark Tami]

Is my hon. Friend concerned, as I am, about the level of cuts to the police forces, particularly in areas such as port security, where traffickers probe for a weak point when they are bringing people into the country?

--- Later in debate ---

[Fiona Mactaggart]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under Pentameter 2, an expert team was set up at Heathrow, which was able to identify children who came through the airport without their parents, as they were particularly vulnerable. That team is not replicated at other ports of entry, and there seems to be compelling evidence to show that Eurotunnel is a route increasingly used by child traffickers because that same kind of expertise is not deployed to identify and interdict child trafficking at the port.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech and knows a lot about the subject. Would Her Majesty’s Opposition support the Government in respect of the border police, as one of its roles is to make sure that trafficked victims are not brought in through our ports?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The Opposition will support any effective border measures that help to protect this country’s borders against illegal immigration and to prevent the victimisation of people through trafficking. We are absolutely on side when it comes to both those things. The targets that existed under previous nationally initiated police operations are, in my view, necessary to make this kind of work, which I welcome, operate effectively.

Another theme in the directive is the importance of looking after victims. I am concerned about the recent decision to replace POPPY as the provider of victim care. I think that the POPPY project was the most exemplary pioneer in its work on victim care. One thing it was prepared to do because of its independence was to challenge decisions on behalf of victims who were not identified as victims by the national referral mechanism. Will the Minister give a guarantee that the present arrangements for providing victim care will include a willingness to act on behalf of those victims who have not been identified by what amounts, frankly, to a bit of a tick-box exercise when it comes to the questionnaires issued by the NRM? Will the new victim care arrangements allow decisions by the NRM to be challenged so that people who have not been designated as victims of trafficking can be properly protected?

[Margot James]

I share the hon. Lady’s admiration for the work of the POPPY project. There is no doubt about the excellence of its organisation. It was, however, in receipt of nearly £1 million for doing its work. Does she accept that it is worth at least trying to allow the new organisation, which will provide care for more victims with the same amount of money—we have heard that the actual amount has been increased, but pro rata I believe it will provide care for more—to get on with its job?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

That is what the contract requires of the new organisation. I did not make any criticism of it because I wish it well. It has the job now, although I am sad that POPPY’s talent might be lost as it had powerful experience to bring to bear on the problem. I asked for a specific assurance that the new organisation will be allowed to challenge—and provided with the finance, perhaps retrospectively—in cases where its advisers and support staff believe that a decision by the NRM has been inaccurate. I put that question to the Minister and I am sure he will come back to it in his reply.

I accept that we need value-for-money services. Personally, I thought POPPY provided pretty good value for money for the women victims whom it supported and I hope that the new arrangements will provide a similar quality of support for women, which is gender sensitive and so forth. I know that part of the ambition was to extend it beyond trafficked women to male victims of trafficking—an initiative that I welcome—but I hope we will continue to have the gender sensitivity that is required in the directive and that POPPY so exemplarily displayed.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Crispin Blunt)]

As the Minister who announced the result of the competition this morning, I want to make it clear that although the Salvation Army, which won the contract, will expect to administer directly about 25% of the funds made available by the Ministry of Justice, 75%—£1.5 million a year—will remain available to organisations such as POPPY so that they can provide the services that they have provided in the past. Although the Salvation Army has taken over the leading role, it will not do all the work itself, and we will need to use the expertise of organisations such as POPPY.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

As the Minister knows—because we have discussed the matter before—POPPY did bid for the provision and his system did not approve the bid. It is quite possible that the requirements that the Salvation Army will lay on the organisation to which it subcontracts will not be appropriate for POPPY. As the Minister knows, POPPY had to bite its tongue a bit to make the bid in the first place, and I encouraged it to do so. We cannot be certain that it will be able to continue—or afford to continue—to provide a service of this kind.

The Minister for Immigration referred to the rapporteur requirement in article 19. I welcome his recognition that—notwithstanding the memorandum that he supplied to the Committee, according to which this was provided by the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre and the inter-ministerial group on human trafficking—there is a question to be asked about whether some more independent mechanism might be appropriate. I strongly urge him to adopt that route, and I am glad that he has left the door open.

I believe that the inter-ministerial group has met once since the election of the present Government. I do not think that that suggests a great degree of oversight. It also worries me that UKHTC does not provide public reports of its work or accessible statistics. In contrast, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which is part of the same mechanism, provides detailed figures and reports which enable it to hold the body to account. I think that we need a body which will report to this Parliament, and which will provide it with the necessary figures and details.

I talked recently to representatives of ECPAT, an exemplary organisation that supports child victims of trafficking. They said that the most recent figures they could get out of UKHTC did not break down the details of victims of trafficking—even children—according to nationality and age, which would have enabled them properly to understand how that ghastly phenomenon operates. I urge the Minister to establish a mechanism which can report to Parliament, and which recognises that the job of a rapporteur is not to administer but to find information and report it. At present, the bodies to which he refers in his memorandum do not go in for much reporting.

Finally, let me deal with the issue of child victims. Shortly before the debate, a number of members of the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking heard an excellent presentation by Barnardo’s about its work with children who have been sexually exploited. Some have been trafficked, and some are victims of a sexual exploitation of a kind that has parallels with child trafficking. Barnardo’s estimates that there are 1,000 sexually exploited children in Britain today, and that the experience of those children, when they come into contact with the criminal justice system, is of being criminalised rather than treated as victims. I believe that Members on both sides of the House feel shame about that.

There is an urgent need for us to provide proper protection mechanisms for child victims of trafficking, and that will require, among other things, a proper guardianship system. We know that although, in theory, local authorities take responsibility for the welfare of children, that is not always the case in practice. The Minister mentioned some good practice in Hertfordshire, which we welcome, but, as he is aware, that is the exception rather than the rule. We know that trafficked children disappear from local authority care every week, and that, rather than being found a few weeks later, they are never found. It is horrific that those most vulnerable, most exploited children are not being protected. It is not just a question of protecting them against an uncle, or whoever is trying to instruct a lawyer on their behalf when it comes to criminal proceedings; it is also a question of protecting them against continuing re-trafficking, which, as is fairly clear, is unfortunately what is happening to many children in Britain today.

Signing the directive would give Britain an opportunity to make a real difference, but we need a practical strategy to implement its proposals. We were promised that in the spring, and the Minister referred to it again tonight, but progress seems to be at best confused, and at worst even more confused. It is slow and a bit muddled. I have been told by voluntary organisations that have been consulted about what the strategy might include that different Home Office civil servants have been put in charge of it, that meetings keep being arranged and then cancelled, that people are not given papers before meetings, and that the timing of a meeting that was due to happen the following day is changed and no agenda is circulated.

I believe that the increasing number of voluntary organisations that deal with human trafficking—including the excellent Human Trafficking Foundation, which was created by a former Member of Parliament for Totnes—are beginning to feel that the Government are trying to use them as a free research resource without listening to their concerns. We want the strategy, and we want it to be as specific as the last strategy—which, I note, has disappeared from the Home Office website, and which had the benefit of specific targets.

I hope that the Minister for Immigration will be able to reassure us that there will be proper consultation about the strategy, that voluntary civil society organisations will be involved as is required by the directive, that they will be properly involved and not asked to attend meetings without an agenda, and that the strategy will be not merely a high-level document with no specific facts and figures enabling people to be held to account, but a concrete set of promises. It is time that we had such a strategy. It was promised for the spring, and my gardening practice tells me that the spring is very nearly over.

Let me end by welcoming today’s decision, which I am sure the whole House will support, and by urging the Minister to do more to make the provision work well in practice. He has some of the necessary ideas, but we need to ensure that they are implemented.

Disturbances (London)

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Does the Home Secretary agree that one of the reasons the policing of this demonstration was more effective than that of some previous events was that the police clearly differentiated the peaceful majority who were demonstrating from the violent, thuggish minority? Is it not therefore depressing that the Mayor of London, who is responsible for the police, actively sought to conflate the two? Will the Home Secretary take this opportunity to repudiate his remarks?

[Mrs May]

Of course it was important that the police learned from recent experience of policing demonstrations, and that, as a result, they chose to operate slightly differently and to use slightly different tactics. I quoted Liberty earlier, which made it clear that some of the violent demonstrators were moving in and out of the peaceful demonstration and—

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 7th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

Yes, the Government acknowledge the difficult and important issue of children going missing from local authorities. At a national level, we are strengthening the arrangements in place to support vulnerable young people by placing the national strategic policing responsibility for missing children within the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. In fact, its thematic review deals explicitly with the issue of trafficked children going missing from local authorities.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

But does the Minister agree that if we were to adopt the European directive on human trafficking, which specifically provides for a guardian for trafficked children, that would be a real step in protecting the children to whom the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) referred?

[Lynne Featherstone]

At the moment, local authorities are, in particular, employing good practice around the use of interpreters and making sure that the places where children are placed are kept secret. As I may have mentioned before in this House, we are looking closely at the text of the European directive and considering its merits, and if we conclude that opting into it would benefit the UK, we will apply to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Immigration (Damian Green)]

As my hon. Friend knows, we are introducing a new system for tier 1 and tier 2 for work-based visas, and at the same time we are speeding up the visa both for businesses and for more general visitors. The biggest single complaint has been about the delays in the issuing of visas. I am happy to assure him that we are concerned about that. We are already beginning to see improvements, so that in many of the key markets where we need to operate our visa system is working better than ever before, and we are meeting our service standards.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

T5. When responding to an earlier question on the trafficking strategy, the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), said that it would include elements of prevention, action on the border and policing. Does she recognise that a very important element of any anti-trafficking strategy is victim care, and that victim care is usually provided by voluntary organisations? The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), the chair of the all-party group on human trafficking, spoke of a big society solution. Can we have a big society participation in the anti-trafficking strategy?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I think we would encourage the big society to get involved at all levels, but as the hon. Lady says, victim care is extremely important. We are providing accommodation and advocacy and all the things that are necessary to help the unfortunate victims of trafficking out of their terrible situation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Monday 24th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the link between alcohol and levels of crime. In fact, 50% of violent incidents are associated with alcohol. Our proposal to ban below-cost sales on the basis of duty plus VAT constitutes an initial package. We will introduce further measures to deal with licensing and other issues involving problem pubs and other alcohol outlets, and also with problem practices. That is precisely what the duty plus VAT element is about.

We will continue to monitor this complex area of policy. In particular, we will consider the rate of duty in the context of super-strength lagers, which have been associated with problematic behaviour.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

T10. Why are the Government—unlike the Governments of other European countries which are increasing the support for the victims of trafficking—proposing to reduce the period during which a victim of trafficking will not face deportation from 45 days to 30 days?

[Damian Green]

The hon. Lady knows that the United Kingdom is committed to working with others, including our European partners, to tackle human trafficking. She was present for the debate in which I said that later in the year we would announce a new strategy on trafficking as a whole. That strategy will enable us not only to build on the work of the last Government in relation to caring for the victims of trafficking—which I commend—but to become much more efficient at prevention, in particular by acting overseas, so that fewer and fewer people are trafficked in the first place. That is the most effective action that we can take to reduce the incidence of this dreadful crime.