Violence against Women and Girls

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Peter Bone

Thursday 12th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Karen Bradley)]

I know that the right hon. Lady—she is a passionate advocate on this topic—cannot be here for my closing remarks, so I wanted to comment now. We are drawing up an implementation plan to deal with the domestic abuse offence. Officials from the Home Office have met the national policing lead on domestic abuse and the College of Policing, and they will be meeting the CPS, to work on implementing the offence in such a way as to ensure that it genuinely offers better protection to victims. We have debated the generalities today, but I wanted to make sure that the right hon. Lady knew the specifics before she left.

[Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)]

Ms Mactaggart, had you concluded your speech?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I have concluded. I thank the Minister for her comments.

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Peter Bone

Monday 19th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

That was a very nice introduction from the Minister. I know that he is standing in for one of his colleagues, which is always challenging. In my two proposals which have won support from Members on both sides of the House, although owing to shortness of time only the names of Opposition Members appear on the amendment paper, I seek to ensure that we achieve the whole ambition set out by the Minister—conformity with the European convention and the European directive.

Amendment (a) to Lords amendment 49 would establish a rapporteur on human trafficking, as is explicitly required by the European directive. The argument for that was best made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) in a debate in Westminster Hall, when he pointed out:

“One of the problems surrounding human trafficking is the lack of reliable information and data analysis permitting us to assess the scope of the problem in our country. The solution in the UK to that challenge is to establish an independent national rapporteur.”—[Official Report, 8 February 2012; Vol. 540, c. 135WH.]

Indeed, the Council of Europe convention and the EU directive are explicit on that point, requiring member states to appoint national rapporteurs or equivalent mechanisms to assess trends in human trafficking, monitor and measure the anti-trafficking activities of state institutions, gather statistics and report on their findings.

The usual response from Ministers is that the interdepartmental ministerial group on trafficking performs the role of a rapporteur, but that is not true. I used to be a member of the interdepartmental ministerial group, which in those days had better attendance than it has had recently. The body meets twice a year, and more Ministers send apologies than turn up. It does not have the one requirement of a rapporteur, which is to be independent of the Government, that it needs to be properly effective. The group has to provide information independently to Parliament, but it does not report to it. It needs to be able objectively to assess and report on the activities of the Government. The job of Ministers is not objectively to assess the Government, but to progress with the business of Government. Therefore, I think that there was a failure to include that requirement in the two welcome amendments tabled in the other place.

The other amendment I have tabled, amendment (a) to Lords amendment 50, would provide for a dedicated advocate for trafficked children, which is another requirement of the Council of Europe convention and another matter that has secured all-party backing. The amendment is modelled on one that was tabled in another place by Lord McColl, a Government Back Bencher, and supported by Cross-Bench and Conservative peers and the Archbishop of York—it had the broadest possible support. My amendment would put into effect the clear requirement in the directive and the convention that children who have been trafficked should be protected by a guardian. Lord McColl withdrew his amendment following a promise from Lord Henley, who said at the beginning of the debate that he would ask the Children’s Commissioner for England

“to review the current practical arrangements for rescued child victims of trafficking”.

He went on to say that following that review the Government would

“be in a position to come back to these matters at a later stage.” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 15 February 2012; Vol. 735, c. 848.]

I gather from the Children Commissioner’s public remarks that she is concerned about some of these policies. She said:

“A request to review care has not yet been made.”

I expect that a request has since been made. She continued:

“However, if this was received we would give it due consideration, and as a small organisation would seek assurances regarding the independence of our work and the resources that would enable us to undertake this work.”

I gather that, within the commission, one member of staff deals with child protection issues and another deals with refugee and asylum issues, so I think there is a real risk that the responsibility Lord Henley has given the organisation is simply beyond its capacity. The Children’s Commissioner is conducting an important inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children in gangs. It is an inquiry that I absolutely support and think is essential, and she is uncovering genuinely shocking information that we all want to know about and that we want the Government to know about and to act on. However, the fact that she is conducting that inquiry will make it really difficult for her to deliver on the pledge that Lord Henley made.

I would be happy not to press my amendment if the Minister gave the House an explicit assurance that he will ensure that the Children’s Commissioner has sufficient expert resources to conduct that inquiry before the end of 2012. If he gave that assurance, I would follow the lead of their lordships by not pressing the amendment to a vote, because I accept that Lord Henley was seeking to recognise the importance of the commitment and to meet the concern of their lordships, felt universally across the Chamber, about protecting victims of child trafficking.

Let us be clear that the problem with trafficked children is that, even when they are taken into the care of local authorities, they disappear. Government statistics suggest that the percentage of trafficked children who disappear has fallen from 30% to 20% but, as the number who have been found is slightly smaller than it used to be, I am not sure that we can be utterly confident in those statistics. In any case, if we are saying that one in five children in the care of local authorities disappears, we seem to have a situation that is absolutely intolerable to Members on both sides of the House.

Let us look at the legal case of one of the few child traffickers who have been convicted, Kennedy Johnson, who brought 49 Nigerian children through British airports, mainly Heathrow and Gatwick. He then targeted council care homes, which he told the trafficked children to get into. He picked girls from the care homes and pushed them into the sex trade in Britain, and also in Spain and Italy. His victims kept appearing for years after he was jailed. Barnardo’s has revealed that when some children trafficked into Britain not through airports but by people smugglers, jumped out of a lorry, they were put in supported lodgings but went missing within 24 hours. Another three children who were put into foster care vanished after several weeks. Of those disappeared children, only one has been found. The rest of them will have been prostituted, after having been taken into care in our name.

I believe that providing guardianship could more effectively protect those children. They have social workers at the moment, but that is not protecting them. Every child in care I speak with says that the problem with their social workers is that they change and do not continue. As was made clear in the amendment in the House of Lords, the proposed advocates would not have to be professional employees of local government or any other body; they could be trained volunteers or employees of charities and voluntary organisations. Children who have been victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation must have someone who is on their side.

I really hope that the Minister can give me the commitment I have requested, which is that the Children’s Commissioner will be able to conduct that work before the end of the year and that the Government will then bring forward proposals to ensure that her recommendations are put into force. That would mean that the only amendment I would have to push would be the one proposing a rapporteur on human trafficking. The interdepartmental ministerial group is a useful tool, but unfortunately few Ministers attend and no Ministers report to Parliament. I am glad that the hon. Member for Wellingborough is in his place, as he is one of the Members who have advocated this most powerfully.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech, much of which I agree with. On her point about a rapporteur, I pressed for that in a Westminster Hall debate and, although we did not get the full rapporteur, the Government assured us that we would have an annual report and that it would be debated. I would like the Minister to confirm that. Otherwise, I will join the hon. Lady in the Division Lobby tonight.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that implied threat, which is at the moment rather more effective coming from his direction than from mine, but nevertheless there is support for the concept on both sides of the House. I know that the Minister is stepping into another Minister’s shoes, and I will keep talking so that he can get that note from his officials, but I believe that if we had an independent rapporteur, we could ensure that our debates about the extent and impact of human trafficking were more effective.

My biggest concern, however, is about more effective protection for children, and I really hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me on that matter.

Trafficking in Human Beings

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Peter Bone

Monday 9th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[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?

Cabinet Office

Debate between Fiona Mactaggart and Peter Bone

Tuesday 21st December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

The Christmas Adjournment debate is a good opportunity for the Government, 2010 years after a botched census led to a baby being born in a stable, to get the 2011 census right. Slough has for a long time been a victim of the failures of the previous census, and as a result we have been underfunded for a significant period. I am concerned that worse problems might occur in the 2011 census, and they will arise from a combination of inadequate resourcing and flawed methodology.

The first flaw in the methodology is the emphasis, as my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster North (Ms Buck) pointed out, on using the post. That is a deterrent to people in my constituency, many of whom have poor literacy skills. Moving as a primary school teacher from Peckham to Slough, I was shocked by the poor literacy in the constituency that I now have the privilege to represent.

Slough’s “hard-to-count” score is assessed as a three, which puts it in the top 20%, but that is another error. It should be assessed as a four, and in the top 10%, to account for our transient and diverse population. One indication of the rapid change in Slough between 2008-09 and 2009-10 is that schools in my small borough recorded 531 recently arrived pupils from 53 different countries.

The score also does not take proper account of the impact of houses in multiple occupation. Slough can provide the Office for National Statistics with information about 1,500 HMOs of which the authorities are aware. For the remaining 2,000 HMOs, which are implied by census and survey data, only one questionnaire will be posted, however. If the questionnaire is posted back or completed online, no follow-up visit by a census collector will take place. Only if a questionnaire is not posted back or not completed online will there be any opportunity for accurate counting through a follow-up visit, and those houses in multiple occupation are just ordinary terraced houses.

Additionally in Slough, a number of people live in sheds and other hidden households for which we have no address, so there will be serious problems in dealing with that. I should like to suggest five remedies to which I hope the Minister will respond.

First, the Minister should ensure that the people responsible for collecting census forms have the requisite language skills. Slough borough council is concerned that none of the census posts being advertised has language as an essential requirement. The recruitment and selection process that Capita is delivering on behalf of the ONS means that there are no face-to-face interviews, and that selection decisions are based on performance in online testing and questioning. Although language skills are listed as desirable for all roles, they are not part of the recruitment and selection process, but they should be.

Secondly, will the Minister ensure that the operational elements of the 2011 census include dedicated and adequately resourced events at which people can complete census questionnaires? Currently, the planned completion centres will not have sufficient personnel who are able to re-issue household questionnaires. Only ONS staff can do that, and in my borough only seven and a quarter people will be able to do so.

As a result, in a very verbal town, the events in the centres, which could be a good way of ensuring that people are able to complete their questionnaire, will not take place frequently enough or in enough places. Are the ONS staff trained in questionnaire filling? Will they have the language skills that my constituents require? The ONS says that local authorities can set up alternative completion centres, but local authority staff cannot issue new forms; only the ONS staff can do that.

Thirdly, a national marketing campaign must take place. It has been deferred because of the Government moratorium on advertising, and that is pretty stupid, frankly. Will the Minister ensure that materials are available and clear? Slough has volunteered to translate certain materials, but the ONS has not agreed, so may I have an assurance that the publicity campaign will be agreed to?

Fourthly, we must improve the arrangements for large households. Currently, the head of household will have to request an additional form if there are more than six residents in their household. They will have to do so using a phone line, and in Slough the head of household is likely to be someone for whom English is not their first language, so such requests will be hard to make. May we therefore have better arrangements for people who need supplementary forms?

Fifthly, Slough is under-represented. I am familiar with the London borough of Wandsworth, which is about twice as big as Slough.

[Mr Bone]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. Has she considered whether a sampling technique would be better than an actual census?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Gentleman is right to make that point, and sampling will take place after the 2011 census, because that will be the last one. Sampling techniques are theoretically great, but I spent 10 years trying to persuade the ONS that its sampling techniques and statistical methods were inadequate, so I know that they are not perfect.

To return to resources, the London borough of Wandsworth is about twice the size of Slough and has a similar ethnic mix, yet Wandsworth has two area managers, whereas Slough has one quarter of an area manager. Wandsworth has two community advisers, the same number as Slough, and 23 co-ordinators compared with Slough’s five. I do not begrudge Wandsworth that; indeed I live in Wandsworth as well as in Slough, but the ONS has shown since 2001 that it does not get Slough and continues not to get Slough. Unless it gets Slough and puts the resources in we will—once again—be under-counted in the 2011 census.