Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

I pay tribute to Jayne Ward for the remarkable work that she is doing to support victims of the most appalling and vile crimes, helping them to get justice and helping them as they go through the criminal justice system. I also pay tribute to the police officers working night and day across the country to tackle sexual assault and abuse.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

The ambition to halve the prevalence of violence against women and girls is a laudable one, but could the Home Secretary give the House some more information? What number is she taking as a starting point to be halved? When will she be able to provide more information to the House and to my Select Committee?

[Yvette Cooper]

I thank the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for her questions. We are currently drawing up a strategy on violence against women and girls, which will be published before the summer recess and will set out the approach that we need to take and the need to reduce domestic abuse, sexual assaults and stalking—the crimes that are most prevalent and of which women are most likely to be the victims, but which we also need to reduce more broadly. We will set out details on the measures that we will be looking for as part of that strategy.

Modern Slavery Act 2015: 10th Anniversary

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the tenth anniversary of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

It is an honour to open this debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting it and thank all right hon. and hon. Members and Friends who supported the application for it. I also want to put on the record my gratitude to the many parliamentarians and former parliamentarians who got us to the point at which we were able to have a Modern Slavery Act 2015.

First and foremost is the noble Baroness May, without whose leadership we simply would not have achieved what we did, but she did that on the back of support from so many parliamentarians who had gone before her, starting, of course, with Anthony Steen. As special adviser to the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee and to the Home Affairs Committee, and as the driving force behind the Human Trafficking Foundation, he has been ever-present and omnipresent in this field. He was very ably supported by Peter Bone, who set up the first all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern slavery, which I am now very proud to co-chair with the noble Baroness Butler-Sloss, another true legend in this area.

I pay tribute to Frank Field, who was a wonderful advocate and with whom I worked so incredibly closely both as a Minister and as a Back Bencher. He led parliamentary efforts as the first chair of the Speaker’s advisory committee on the Modern Slavery Act and how we implement it here in Parliament. In addition, I pay tribute to the noble Lord Randall, who supported Anthony Steen and others and now chairs the Human Trafficking Foundation; Maria Miller, who worked on the review of the Modern Slavery Act, along with Baroness Butler-Sloss and Frank Field; Lord Coaker, who chaired the Select Committee before me; and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) who, through his social justice work, was a real advocate. The final person I want to pay tribute to, who is so sadly no longer with us, is James Brokenshire. He was my predecessor as modern slavery Minister and he really did start the work to get us to the point where we had a Modern Slavery Act.

I cannot quite believe that it was 10 years ago. I think I might be the only person in the Chamber who was here at that time, but 26 March 2015—it was 10 years ago to the day; it was a Thursday—was the very last day before Parliament prorogued for the 2015 general election. We had been working on the Bill. It had undergone every kind of proper scrutiny and was an exemplar for how legislation should be done: pre-legislative scrutiny, a draft Bill and work done with the Select Committee and others. It also had cross-party support.

As is always the case with any comprehensive piece of proposed legislation, there were areas where changes were looked at, and there was quite a lot of ping-pong between this place and the other place. As the Minister, I spent far more time than I ever expected standing at the Bar and hoping that by being there I could convince their lordships to support the Government’s position. We had two real sticking points. One was on the treatment of those in the United Kingdom who were on an overseas domestic worker visa; the other was whether every child victim should have an independent child trafficking advocate.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord Bates, who was the Lords Minister at that time. His powers of diplomacy and skill in navigating the other place are legendary. He got us to the point at which we were the final piece of legislation to get Royal Assent in that Parliament. I remember being in one of the offices in Marsham Street, where we all sat with bated breath. Although we knew that we had got through it, nobody quite believed it until “La Reyne le veult” was finally announced and the Modern Slavery Bill became an Act of Parliament. As well as those parliamentarians, I pay tribute to all the officials in the Home Office who worked so hard. It was a real mission for them, and it would not have been possible without an incredible team effort. I thank everybody who got us there.

It is unbelievable to me that 10 years on, I am still asked, “What is modern slavery?” I sometimes feel slightly cross that I still have to explain it, but it is important that we keep reflecting what it is. It is slavery, plain and simple. We all understand what slavery is. It is slavery happening today. It is a financial crime; it is invariably for financial gain. It is the exploitation of one human being by another human being for financial gain. It is a coercive crime, and it is happening globally. There are estimated to be 50 million victims globally and more than 100,000 victims here in the UK. I hate to say this, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I can assure you that it will be happening in your towns, villages and cities. It will be round the corner, happening to people you come across in your everyday life.

I urge everybody who is listening and everybody who is here—they are here because they care about this, and I am grateful to all of them—to educate wherever they can. One of the things I am proudest of is the posters—many Members here will not see them because they are male—in women’s toilets at airports or stations that say, “Are you a victim of slavery?” We came up with that in the Home Office because we realised that a victim of slavery who is with the perpetrator in the queue at the immigration line at the airport has nowhere to go to get help, apart from the ladies’ lavatory, where their perpetrator will not follow them. As the Minister will know, the perpetrators are very often male, although as we heard in our evidence session on Tuesday in the Home Affairs Committee, there is always at least one woman on every indictment. Women are perpetrators as well, but we needed to find somewhere to get those women the support they need.

This is a crime that is happening everywhere. I have to make the point that it is not a migration crime. There is a laziness in the language used around trafficking, particularly by media commentators who talk about human trafficking when they mean people-smuggling. People-smuggling is a consensual crime. Those people are victims of a crime, but they are almost victims of fraud rather than being coerced into doing something against their will. It is very much like the difference between someone who gets sick from taking drugs because their drink has been spiked against their knowledge and someone who takes illegal drugs they have bought and is sick. There is a policy response to each of those cases, but it has to be different. The policy response for victims of trafficking cannot be confused with the policy response for victims of the crime of people smuggling. People-smuggling is a crime that we need to tackle, and it is right that Governments control their borders, but we must separate the two. That should be done at law enforcement level, at the Home Office and at other policy Departments. These two issues cannot be confused.

What did the Act do? I have a copy of it with me. It is the first time I have looked through the Act for quite some time. I am getting goosebumps but also feeling slightly nauseous at what we went through to get there. I am incredibly proud of it. It introduced the new offences of trafficking and exploitation. I pay tribute to Caroline Haughey KC, who came before the Committee on Tuesday and who helped to write those offences. The offences were very carefully drafted to ensure we could get the maximum number of prosecutions, and they were written with a view to juries being able to understand them.

There is a push at the moment to change the trafficking definition to not include movement. The reason we have an exploitation offence and a trafficking offence is that a jury will think of trafficking as involving movement. That is why there is also an exploitation offence that does not involve movement, so that prosecutors can get successful prosecutions. I am not sure that that change is necessary. The maximum sentence for these offences was previously 14 years, but the Act changed that to life imprisonment, which was a really important move.

Protections for victims have improved. For example, we introduced a statutory defence, to ensure that victims come forward, which is incredibly important. Civil protection orders were also introduced, as were measures to enable law enforcement to more easily access the financial assets of perpetrators, which also included reparation orders. This was done because the only way to break this crime is to break the business model. There were also new duties on public agencies.

The Act introduced the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. Independent child trafficking advocates are included in the legislation, although it took a long time for us to get them there. The other piece of landmark legislation was the “transparency in supply chains” measure in section 54. This had not initially been in the Bill. For example, it was not there when I stood at that Dispatch Box and closed the debate on Second Reading, but it was introduced during the passage of the Bill. This was the measure that everybody wanted to see included. Importantly, though, it was not a stand-alone measure; it was part of a modern slavery strategy that had been published the year before. It was based on the “four Ps” approach to tackling crime: pursue, prevent, protect and prepare. There was so much in the modern slavery strategy beyond what was in the legislation. The legislation was landmark, but it was only a very small part of what was being done.

In 2015, when the Modern Slavery Bill was enacted, it was world-leading. We were the first country to have a consolidated Modern Slavery Act, the first country to have transparency in supply chain legislation, and the first country that had this as a priority for Government. But the world has moved on. As we all know, criminals always move more quickly than the legislation. When we introduced the legislation, county lines were not a phenomenon. Although the offences in the Act are very appropriate for the perpetrators of county lines offences, the protections for victims simply do not fit the crimes that are perpetrated in county lines.

The issue of small boats was not a phenomenon. It simply was not there when we introduced the Act. However, I do want to make it clear that there is very little evidence that the people travelling on small boats are victims of trafficking—this was seen in the Home Affairs Committee. They are victims of the crime of people-smuggling. The problem is that the measures taken to stop the small boats have a chilling effect on those who are genuine victims of the coercive crime of human trafficking. That can mean that they do not come forward and that they will not provide the evidence that is needed to stop the perpetrators. That makes it harder to detect the crime and to give the protection to victims. This is a real opportunity for traffickers. Somebody may have paid the people smugglers to get them into the UK, but when they get here, they cannot legitimately work and they cannot find the support that they need. They are also in debt, and that indebtedness and the inability to work legally means that they then become victim of traffickers. But, as I have said, that was not a phenomenon we knew of at the time.

Orphanage trafficking is another issue. It is a global issue that we are only just getting to terms with in the United Kingdom. We do not feel that the issue has affected us, but in reality more than 5 million children, who are not orphans, are currently living in orphanages. They are living in orphanages that have been set up to raise money. They have tourists visiting them and gap year students working there. They are there for the financial gain of those who have set up these orphanages.

Australia has led the way in tackling that issue. I wish to pay tribute to Senator Linda Reynolds, who is standing down from the Australian Parliament in the next few days. She has been a real leader on this. At the Inter-Parliamentary Union, she has passed resolutions that have been adopted. I hope the Minister will look favourably on amendments that I might bring forward to the Crime and Policing Bill, or to a private Member’s Bill, that try to get the issue of orphanage trafficking into our legislation. The people who want to support the orphanages do so with the best of intentions—they want to help the poor children—but this is actually a fraud. These children are not orphans. More than 5 million children from south-east Asia and South America have been taken away from their families and are being used to raise money for fake organisations.

When we brought in the section 54 measure on transparency in supply chains, although California had such a measure, it was the first time that a national Government had introduced one. Quite deliberately, it was a light touch provision—we had to prove that it would work and be effective—but the time has come for it to be tightened. I am disappointed that on Tuesday we were unable to pass the amendment on the use of Uyghur labour in the supply chain for solar panels and so on.

The US has the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act 2021 and its hot goods provisions, whereby items cannot even enter the US market unless the importer can prove that there was no slavery in the supply chain. I urge the Government to look at what we can do on similar measures, because they would be simple wins for the Government that would improve the situation and make it clear that we do not stand for slavery. We will not become green in our energy production on the backs of the poorest and those who are being exploited.

What am I asking the Minister today? First, when will we have a new modern slavery strategy? We desperately need one, as the current one is 11 years old. Will she commit to strengthening supply chain measures? It has been a big disappointment to me that many Queen’s Speeches and King’s Speeches have included promises of new modern slavery legislation on supply chains, but it has never come forward. Will she commit to that?

I have concerns about the Fair Work Agency in the new Employment Rights Bill, because it takes the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and puts it into a new agency that will not sit underneath the Home Office. Vital work was done by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and then the GLAA, which was brought in for the right reasons—we all remember the Morecambe bay cockle pickers disaster. We need to ensure that there is proper Home Office oversight of that agency and that it focuses on abuse and exploitation, not just on ensuring that employment rights are met.

We cannot continue with two classes of victims as we have at the moment. We need to ensure that everyone who is a victim of modern slavery can access the support that they need. Could the Minister review the national referral mechanism? I welcome the extra caseworkers, but 831 days on average for a decision is not good enough —she and I both know that. I urge her to do whatever she can, and I will support her every step of the way to make it clear that the national referral mechanism needs to make those decisions more quickly. We heard great evidence about this on Tuesday in the Select Committee.

The UK has a duty to put victims front and centre of everything we do in response to this crime. If we do not put the victim at the heart of our policy response and everything we do, we will simply fail to address this issue. But we also need to lead the global effort. We did lead it, and the time has come for us to get back there. We are looked at—people are desperate for the UK to lead on this. They know what we have done in the past and they desperately want us to do it again. That means working in multilateral organisations such as the United Nations. In particular, we need to ensure that sustainable development goal 8.7 is enacted around the world.

Will the Minister make this issue one of those priorities? I know the Government have their missions, and I am sure that I could squeeze it into safer streets or something like that. I could find a way to shoehorn this in, but without that support and leadership from the very top, this matter will not get the urgency it needs. It is the biggest human rights abuse globally. It is happening everywhere, including in the UK. Let us be clear: the highest number of victims in the NRM are UK nationals; it is not a migration crime. We need to ensure that it has the support and the thrust behind it with the leadership that I know the Minister can give it. I urge her to ensure that the whole of Government do the same.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)]

As a child I was taught that 200 years ago we abolished the transatlantic slave trade. As a young adult, I learned that that had not marked the end, and that modern slavery was a booming global industry. Then, as I became a young father, I learned through the excellent work of Hope for Justice that there were slaves right here in the UK—hidden even within my own city. And I learned that many of those slaves were children, not unlike my own. I felt a hint of the desperation that I would feel if one of my children had been trafficked into slavery—how I would pray that there would be someone to rescue them, someone who would not rest until slaves had been found and released. I realised that, for somebody else’s child, I had to be that someone.

Fortunately, I was not alone, and 10 years ago this place once again passed legislation to end slavery in our nation. It recognised our duty to eliminate slavery from our supply chains, and it introduced a key revelation to policing: that someone presenting as a perpetrator might in reality be a victim. The world has continued to change, however: our protections have weakened and the challenge has grown. It is estimated that there are 122,000 victims of modern slavery in the UK, yet fewer than 20,000 were referred to the national referral mechanism last year.

Detecting modern slavery is hard. It is a crime in which the victim is intrinsically hidden—often as invisible and elusive as the perpetrator. The policing challenge is unique. Furthermore, victims of modern slavery are often forced to break the law or are camouflaged among legitimate yet exploited workers who are themselves insecure, transient and unrepresented. We are combating highly organised and effective international criminal networks—they are agile, opportunistic and embedded in our communities.

Our system is vulnerable. It has been too easy for children to disappear. Siloed public services are too ineffective in recognising and responding to potential cases. Our systems are divided, and the traffickers have conquered, yet there is hope. Once local authorities are trained in what to look for, they begin to identify victims and, working with partners, can disrupt this crime. If we ensure clearly defined and resourced roles, and are empowered to work across multiple organisations and departments, we can ensure that these complex crimes, which intersect multiple agencies, can be detected. We can ensure that victims become survivors, and that perpetrators are convicted. We need to work across Government to deliver that.

To eliminate slavery, we must no longer tolerate exploitation of any kind. This Government have taken great steps in improving workers’ rights, and that must continue. We must be responsive and fast, keeping up with the highest international standards in law and human rights. The Council of Europe’s convention on action against trafficking in human beings provides a framework that could be adopted broadly. Similarly, we must ensure that the requirement for businesses to audit their supply chains has teeth. The Modern Slavery Act required large businesses to publish details of the actions that they were taking to identify and tackle exploitation in their supply chains; we now need checks, and penalties for failure to effectively keep supply chains free from slavery.

Like survivors of stalking, domestic abuse and sexual abuse, survivors of modern slavery need access to independent advocacy. We must embed that in our national response, together with long-term holistic support. That is crucial both for survivors’ recovery and to reduce vulnerability to further harm or re-exploitation. We cannot treat this problem as business as usual. The world is becoming increasingly unstable and unpredictable. International conflicts and climate pressures are making people vulnerable and providing the perfect conditions for traffickers. That is visible in the English channel, but that is just the tip of the iceberg; what is hidden are the tens of thousands of victims living in the fear and despair of slavery right here in our towns, cities and rural areas.

We are taking firm and decisive action to protect our borders, break criminal gangs and clear the backlog of immigration cases. I recognise the point that the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) made about the distinction between people smuggling and human trafficking, but the sectors overlap. The action being taken is a good start, and I recognise the impressive impact that the Minister and our new Government have already had through our investment in hiring an additional 200 modern slavery case workers, but that is smashing the iceberg only above the surface. To solve the problem, we need a response that matches the scale of the hidden challenge. Modern slavery is a complex crime that cuts across all aspects of Government and society, and our response must match it, cutting across the whole of Government.

I put it to this House that we may already have a golden opportunity. This Government have already committed to a fresh approach to governing—one of collaboration, partnership and agility. We are also undertaking a historic and ambitious programme of local government reorganisation and devolution of power from Westminster to our regions. We have already seen programmes tested and proven that provide a model that we can deploy through local government.

The Human Trafficking Foundation has worked with nine local authorities that have appointed a designated modern slavery co-ordinator. Those co-ordinators have deployed training in local authorities, improved partnership working, increased the quality and quantity of referrals to support, and delivered prevention strategies. The work of these modern slavery co-ordinators has been remarkable.

[Dame Karen Bradley]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman giving way. I am intervening on him so that I can put it on the record that I am a trustee of the Human Trafficking Foundation. I realise that I did not say that in my opening statement, but I want to be clear about it, and to say that I support all the work that the foundation does.

[Tom Collins]

I thank the right hon. Lady for that clarification.

In 2023, there were 218 local authorities that made referrals using the national referral mechanism for adults. The nine authorities with a designated modern slavery co-ordinator position accounted for 18% of those referrals. That figure rose to 20% in 2024. They trained thousands of local authority staff and partners and increased confidence rates in reporting modern slavery from around 45% to close to 99%. Critically, these measures led to prosecutions. We can learn from that, and devolution is a ripe opportunity to deploy the lessons.

It is clear to me that the Government can no longer delegate responsibility for modern slavery to a single Department; we need to build both passive and active immunity into every area. Our modern slavery response must saturate our work at both national and local level. Alongside that collective duty, dedicated roles with cross-organisational links and clear ownership are key.

A national strategy that factors in local partnership responses would be transformative. An example of this can be seen in the devolved decision-making pilots, in which multi-agency teams, led by a local authority, made national referral mechanism decisions for children. This approach was over four times faster than the Home Office at making decisions, and it encouraged information sharing across agencies and local partnership working to keep children safe. The success of devolved decision-making panels demonstrates the effectiveness of co-ordinated local efforts under a national framework. I welcome the Minister’s commitment in the recently published action plan to rolling out these panels. Local authorities already have duties to disrupt modern slavery. With a clear cross-cutting partnership approach, facilitated by clear, dedicated local leadership, we could start to build real immunity into our communities.

We have embraced the mission to deliver a decade of national renewal. A decade of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 has allowed us to begin the abolition of modern slavery. We have the tools, but we must not rest. Rather, we should recommit ourselves to the most ambitious goal of ending slavery in our nation and our supply chains. We can see what needs to be done. We have begun; now we must deliver the collaboration, commitment and resources to do it.

There are people in our country who are utterly hidden, isolated, fearful and hopeless, but they are not alone. Today I urge all in this House to recommit with me; we will not rest, but will instead forge on, and will do what it takes, and what the evidence has taught us to do, in order to find slavery out, prosecute the perpetrators, break the networks, and march on until every person is seen and slavery is finished.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Karen Bradley]

I start by referring to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which I failed to do in my opening speech. I am worried that I may have just talked about things that I have an interest in without referring to that interest, so I have done that now. I also pay tribute to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, because you were a member of the Bill Committee, and were an integral part of delivering this legislation; we were there together, going through this.

It has been a fantastic debate. I thank everybody who has taken part, and I will briefly try to mention all of them. I say to the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) that things of beauty are many and varied, but his commitment to the cause of the Uyghurs cannot be doubted, and I look forward to working with him on the matter. The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), who is an active member of the Home Affairs Committee, spoke well about his previous constituent Wilberforce. He also mentioned the resources for the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and I again pay tribute to all those who have held the role: Eleanor Lyons, who is in the role now, Kevin Hyland and Dame Sara Thornton, who have done amazing work.

The hon. Member for Worcester (Tom Collins), who is an active member of the APPG, spoke movingly about the human reaction, and noted that we cannot take the emotion out of the issue. The points that the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns) made about immigration status were so important. Immigration status is such a vulnerability, and we need to be careful. If the Minister wants to get rid of overseas domestic workers visas, she has an advocate in me.

My neighbour the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) and I share many of the same issues. We share a border, and criminals cross that border, so we need to work together. She is also an active member of the all-party group. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray)—another active and excellent member of the Home Affairs Committee—really knows what he is talking about. I want to talk to him about independent child trafficking advocates, because we want them rolled out everywhere.

The final Back-Bench contribution was from the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), who talked about his great experience. It is wonderful that we have so much experience in this House.

I thank everybody for taking part. The voices of the victims have come through in the debate, and we must never, ever forget them. I want to work across the parties on this issue, as we always have, to keep delivering for those victims. We owe it to them.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the tenth anniversary of the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Asylum Hotels and Illegal Channel Crossings

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 25th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

The media are reporting that the earliest the contract can be broken is September next year. Can the Minister confirm whether that is the case? What liability does the taxpayer have for a contract ending today that we cannot get out of until September next year?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

The right hon. Lady is talking about the prime contractor, which in this case is Clearsprings Ready Homes. As with the other two contractors, the break clauses are with it. We have approval or not of sub-prime contractors. Stay Belvedere Hotels Ltd is a sub-prime contractor, and as the Home Office we have withdrawn our approval for it to be in the supply chain.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

The recent National Audit Office report on the Government’s response to violence against women and girls, which includes domestic abuse, made a number of recommendations. My Committee will be considering that issue, but will the Minister comment on what the Government’s response will be to those recommendations, and say how she will ensure that domestic abuse is tackled across the country, including in Gloucester?

[Jess Phillips]

I was waiting for that reference to Gloucester. As the right hon. Lady will know, the NAO report is largely based on the previous Government’s period in office, and although it makes clear recommendations, it would be premature of me to comment. However, the strategy to combat violence against women and girls that will be published by this Government in early summer will undoubtedly be looking to the NAO recommendations.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Karen Bradley Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 10th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my fellow member of the Home Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Telford (Shaun Davies). He made exactly the right point in saying there are no easy answers to this problem.

I stand here in another immigration Bill debate—I do not know how many I have attended in the 15 years that I have been in Parliament. Madam Deputy Speaker, you held the brief of Immigration Minister for some time. We have all tried to combat this problem, and we all want to see the same solution. I sincerely wish the Home Secretary and her team of Ministers the best of luck in getting the Bill right, which may mean that there need to be some amendments to make sure that it actually delivers what she wants it to deliver, because there are no easy solutions. There is no silver bullet that will solve this problem, and any politician who dares to stand up and say, “Only one thing is going to make this better,” is misleading the public and making it harder for all of us to do the job that we were elected to do.

It is important to say that the Bill builds on previous work, including on data sharing and returns. These are all matters that Governments of every colour have worked on for many years. I congratulate the Secretary of State on focusing on those, but it is right to say that this is a process rather than an event, that these are things that all parties and all Governments have worked on, and that legislation can only go so far. This is about how enforcement happens, about training and about understanding at the frontline. I praise the NCA, which has done incredible work on this issue globally for many years and continues to do so. We need to remember when people get to the beaches in northern France that an awful lot of others do not make it there because of the work of the NCA and other parts of our law enforcement system.

Illegal migration is a global problem, and we cannot escape that. We have talked about the increase in numbers, which is down to global events. This is happening across the world; we are not the only country suffering from this problem. We might see it acutely on the boats crossing the channel, but this is happening everywhere. May I ask the Home Secretary to use her good offices, and those of the Prime Minister, to raise this issue at all multilateral levels? We need it to be on the agenda for the UN General Assembly, and we need an annual Heads of Government meeting at a UN level to look at this matter. The Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), talked about when the refugee convention was written and what it was written for. Things are different now. We are living in a different world, which means that we need to work together globally to deal with this issue.

In the short time I have, I will make just a couple of points. I welcome the measures on endangering life at sea, but the devil will be in the detail. We will need to make sure that the measures are properly understood by those enforcing the laws, and that they can actually be implemented. The Home Affairs Committee has heard that if a boat gets on to a beach near Calais, it is very difficult for anyone to intervene at that point because of the legal position in international maritime law and other matters.

I also welcome the protection measures and the biometric testing. I met representatives of the British Red Cross last week, and they have some very interesting ideas about potentially expanding where that testing could take place. I hope that the Home Secretary and the Minister can take that point forward.

My final point is about modern slavery. I welcome what the Home Secretary said about the protections for victims of modern slavery, but I want to reiterate that modern slavery is not a migration crime; it is a financial crime. It is the exploitation of one human being by another for financial profit, and we must not confuse the two. If somebody chooses to pay a people smuggler to put them in an unsafe vessel, that is a crime, but it is a consensual crime. If somebody has been forced to get into an unsafe vessel, that is a coercive crime and needs to be treated differently. In much the same way as our policy response to a person who gets ill from having their drink spiked is different from our policy response to somebody who gets ill from taking an illegal substance that they chose to buy, there has to be a different policy response to victims of modern slavery.

May I ask the Home Secretary and the Minister to make sure that, throughout the passage of this Bill and elsewhere, the victims of modern slavery are put at the forefront and can get the protections they need? They should enter the national referral mechanism so that they can be looked after. We owe it to the world to be a leader in this matter, and I fear that if we do not take those steps, we will fail to be so.

Southport Attack

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, and my thoughts are with everybody involved. The list that she set out of the points where the agencies and institutions could have intervened sooner is truly terrifying. What reassurance can she give the House that this is a cross-Government piece of work and that all agencies and institutions will be involved? Furthermore, as and when the inquiry makes recommendations, which it will hopefully do on an interim basis, will she give a commitment that she will look carefully at them and implement them as soon as possible?

[Yvette Cooper]

We will certainly look at any recommendations that come from this important inquiry. We need to look at what went wrong in this case. This is particularly about the interactions between the different agencies. There were so many agencies involved, but, as a network, they failed to identify the risk and to have sufficient actions in place. Lancashire county council has carried out a rapid initial review, but there still has to be a statutory child safeguarding practice review and a coroner’s inquiry. However, our view is that those are not sufficient, because we need a cross-agency examination of all of the things that went wrong in this case. We have to start with the dangers that were posed to those children in Southport in such a devastating way and then see why the system so badly failed to protect them from those dangers. We need that rather than organisations working in their own silos, doing only their bit and then leaving children at risk.

Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, which my Committee will look at carefully. Professor Alexis Jay will be in front of us next Tuesday and I am sure that we will come back with further points, but I have two points today. The first is about the duty to report. In many cases, reports were made but the victims were simply not listened to and not believed, so what can the Home Secretary do to ensure that changes? Secondly, since I am not clear from her answers so far, will the local inquiries have statutory powers to compel witnesses—yes or no?

[Yvette Cooper]

On the right hon. Lady’s first point, she is right that reports were often not listened to and not followed up. In some areas, what that means is that although recommendations were made, there was never any follow-up—there was never the proper implementation of standards to be able to do so. For example, in policing we have never had a proper performance management framework to ensure that standards are being met and that there is proper follow-up. We need that stronger performance management framework in place.

Those who conducted the Telford inquiry were able to make progress and get to the truth using an existing local inquiry framework. That was able to be extremely effective. In other areas, we have needed to have other action—including, for example, action by inspectorates to follow up—so there are different approaches that we can take. We believe that the current system is not strong enough; that is why we have set out work that is under way, involving the Cabinet Office and local mayors and local councils, to make sure we can strengthen the accountability arrangements to be able both to follow up and support local inquiries where they are relevant, and to use existing powers that are in place.

Oral Answers to Questions

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

A focus on neighbourhood policing is welcome; we have seen it in Staffordshire for some time. Police leaders have said that if they do not have the flexibility to recruit as they need to, there is a risk that police officers will end up having to fill vacancies in specialist areas. Will the Home Secretary listen to police leaders and give them that flexibility?

United Front Work Department

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

May I urge the Minister to introduce the FIRS scheme as soon as possible and commence it at the earliest possible opportunity? What steps has the Home Office taken to ensure the proposed new Chinese embassy, at the Royal Mint site, has proper oversight, so that we do not allow it to become a new base for spies?

[Dan Jarvis]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee for her questions; I know the Home Secretary is looking forward to appearing in front of the Committee tomorrow.

On the embassy, as the right hon. Lady will know, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government has called in the application, in line with current planning policy. The planning decision sits solely with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government—the Deputy Prime Minister. As the right hon. Lady will understand, I am unable to say anything more about that, but a final decision will be made in due course.

The right hon. Lady also asked about FIRS. I can give her an assurance that we are progressing it at pace, and it is the Government’s strong intention to introduce it as soon as practically possible. To that end, we intend to lay the regulations as soon as possible in the new year.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Karen Bradley Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 9th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Matt Vickers]

I agree entirely. There is no reason why we should not bring that measure to the House for decision. There is no reason to delegate that power to the Secretary of State. It would be sensible to take that delegation out. We have just talked about the fact that some people think the number should be 100, and others think it should be 200. It would be logical to bring the measure back to the House, if required, in due course, and I hope the Minister agrees.

[Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)]

We all hope that the Bill is absolutely right—that is what we want—but there is nothing wrong with increased scrutiny. Would it not be right for the Government to accept new clause 1, so that we can ensure that there is a review? Through that, we can get the evidence, and then we will know whether we have got it right.