Lord Coaker
Main Page: Lord Coaker (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Coaker's debates with the Home Office
(5 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Priti Patel
My right hon. Friend is absolutely correct. There have been recent cases where that has taken place, and rightly so. Criminals must be pursued and prosecuted, and we must use every single lever of law enforcement to confiscate their funds and assets. I know that has recently happened in other cases.
My right hon. Friend is right that, as a country, we have levers in our own legislation that enable us to send out a very strong signal internationally. We must do more of that.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s comments and the tone with which she made them. We are all horrified by what has happened. May I stress the importance of international co-operation and ask the right hon. Lady to make herself aware of the work going on in the Council of Europe? Led by the Foreign Secretary, the aim is to improve concerted action on human trafficking in all Council of Europe member states and beyond.
Priti Patel
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I thank him for his work through the all-party parliamentary group on human trafficking and modern slavery. He gives a good example of collaboration not just in the House but across other organisations—in the Council of Europe and across Governments multinationally. We must pursue that, because of what we are witnessing and experiencing right now. One case is too many, but when 39 people die in our country in such an awful way, that is not acceptable. We have to do much more work together to stop such things from happening.