Covid-19: Child Trafficking Debate

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Department: Home Office

Covid-19: Child Trafficking

Lord Paddick Excerpts
Tuesday 29th September 2020

(4 years, 1 month ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Williams of Trafford Portrait Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)
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The noble Lord will want, as I do, to see the online harms White Paper become a Bill in Parliament. Much work is going on to tackle that sort of abuse, which is probably on the increase during the Covid pandemic. On conspiracy theorists of all descriptions—including anti-vaxxers and those against 5G masts, which we saw at the beginning—clearly that sort of misinformation can be incredibly harmful.

Lord Paddick Portrait Lord Paddick (LD)
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My Lords, the Minister talked about the role of local authorities. Covid-19 has led to the scaling back of some crucial local services, one of which is on-site workplace inspections to identify child and adult victims of trafficking and rescue them. Can the Government tell the House how many inspections have been carried out since the start of the pandemic?