Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the cost to the public purse was of the Salvation Army shelters for victims of human trafficking in (a) 2012 and (b) 2013; whether the Government's funding of those shelters is dependant on the number of victims identified or the length of time they stay in the shelter; and for what average number of days victims have stayed in such shelters in 2014.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The total cost of the Government-funded Adult Victims of Trafficking Care
Contract was £3.7 million in 2012 and £3.6 million in 2013. The cost of this contract is
dependent on both the number of potential victims who enter the service and the
length of time potential victims stay in the service. In 2014 the average
length of stay in a safe house was 81 days.
Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether any organisations contracted to provide specialist support and accommodation to victims of modern slavery are accommodating victims in hotels or bed and breakfast lodgings for (a) 24 hours or less, (b) one to five days and (c) more than five days; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The Government-funded Adult Victims of Trafficking Care Contract is delivered
through The Salvation Army, who subcontract a range of support providers across
England and Wales. One of these support providers provides accommodation
within a commercial hotel, this includes for (a) 24 hours or less, (b) one to
five days and (c) more than five days. Due to the nature of this accommodation
it is only used to accommodate potential victims with lower level support
needs, who are sufficiently independent.
Under the European Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings
(ECAT), the Government is obligated to provide potential victims of trafficking
with a recovery and reflection period which includes appropriate accommodation.
All support providers provide regular reports to The Salvation Army on their
compliance with the ECAT obligations. Compliance is monitored by The Salvation
Army, who undertake periodic inspections, including evaluating a sample of
support plans and conducting feedback interviews with potential victims.
Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many people have been identified in each of the last five years as having been referred to the National Referral Mechanism more than once.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The current National Referral Mechanism (NRM) system is not designed to be able
to accurately identify this type of information. Personal details collected at
the point of entry to the NRM are not currently recorded in a way which permits
the definitive identification of individuals who have been referred more than
once. This is due to a number of factors in the way the data is provided by
both responding agencies and potential victims, as well as how it is collated
and recorded. The recommendations of the NRM review, when implemented, will
make provision for this type of data in the future.
Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answers of 9 April 2014, Official Report, column 274WS and 14 January 2014, Official Report, column 481W, on human trafficking: victim support schemes, for what reason information on each individual and on their gender and location was not given in the former Answer; and if she will provide that information in response to future parliamentary questions seeking equivalent information.
Answered by Karen Bradley
In March 2014, there were 126 referrals to the Government-funded support
service for adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales
administered by the Salvation Army, of which 78 were female victims and 48 were
male victims. In the interests of victim safety only the region in which the
victim was encountered is provided, and not the county, parliamentary
constituency or details of the specific shelters at which victims are
supported. The scope of the victim care contract does not extend (a) beyond the
date on which a victim exits government funded support or (b) to the safety and
protection of victims post the recovery and reflection period. The Salvation
Army therefore does not routinely maintain contact with victims outside the
scope of the victim care contract.
The breakdown of information requested is as follows and will be provided in
response to future parliamentary questions seeking equivalent information.
Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the Answer of 9 April 2014, Official Report, column 274W, on human trafficking: victim support schemes, how many of those referred were (a) men and (b) women, by country; what steps are taken to ensure that after the victim exits the shelter into which they have been placed by the Salvation Army they are not retrafficked or enter contact with their former traffickers; and if she will make a statement.
Answered by Karen Bradley
In March 2014, there were 126 referrals to the Government-funded support
service for adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales
administered by the Salvation Army, of which 78 were female victims and 48 were
male victims. In the interests of victim safety only the region in which the
victim was encountered is provided, and not the county, parliamentary
constituency or details of the specific shelters at which victims are
supported. The scope of the victim care contract does not extend (a) beyond the
date on which a victim exits government funded support or (b) to the safety and
protection of victims post the recovery and reflection period. The Salvation
Army therefore does not routinely maintain contact with victims outside the
scope of the victim care contract.
The breakdown of information requested is as follows and will be provided in
response to future parliamentary questions seeking equivalent information.
Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if he will take steps to ensure that assets of human traffickers are frozen within 48 hours of their arrest; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The Serious and Organised Crime Strategy, published in October 2013, sets out
how the Government will make it harder for criminals to use, hide and move the
proceeds of crime. The Government will, as soon as parliamentary time allows,
seek to amend the Proceeds of Crime Act to enable assets to be frozen more
quickly and easily.
Section 60B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 allows for relevant land vehicle,
ship or aircraft to be detained where a person has been arrested for a human
trafficking offence. These powers will be brought forward and consolidated
into the Modern Slavery Bill.
Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, if she will make a comparative assessment of the sources, reliability and mutual compatibility of the statistics on the number of human trafficking victims from Albania given in parliamentary written answers and in the annual reports of the National Crime Agency.
Answered by Karen Bradley
A comparative assessment has been made.
Parliamentary questions regularly ask for specific details about suspected
victims of trafficking referred to the trafficking victim support service
operated by The Salvation Army.
The source of this data is The Salvation Army records.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) publishes statistics each year on the number of
potential victims who have been referred to the National Referral Mechanism.
The source of this data is the NCA records.
The two sets of figures measure slightly different things but are mutually
compatible.
Not all of the potential victims who are referred to the National Referral
Mechanism will then be referred to The Salvation Army for victim support. Some
might not receive a positive reasonable grounds decision and others might not
want Government-funded support.
We would therefore expect the number of cases referred to the National Referral
Mechanism, reported by the NCA, to be higher than the number of cases referred
to The Salvation Army for victim support, reported by the regular Parliamentary
questions.
This is borne out by our comparative assessment. The table below lists the PQs
that have requested data about the numbers of potential victims referred to The
Salvation Army, and lists the number of Albanian victims supported each month.
In total, this data indicates that there were 139 Albanian adult victims
referred to The Salvation Army for victim support in 2013 in England and Wales.
This is lower than the 208 potential adult Albanian victims who were originally
referred to the National Referral Mechanism in 2013 from England and Wales, as
reported in the NCA's annual report.
Month | MP | Hansard Reference | No. of Albanian Victims Supported |
January | Tony Baldry | 14 February 2013, c866W | 5 |
February | Amber Rudd | 11 March 2013, c33W | 9 |
March | Margot James | 3 June 2013, c925W | 7 |
April | Robert Buckland | 3 June 2013, c927W | 14 |
May | David Simpson | 19 June 2013, c712W | 10 |
June | Chris Ruane | 10 July 2013, c276W | 9 |
July | Fiona Bruce | 6 February 2014, c325W | 12 |
August | Caroline Spelman | 28 October 2013, c358W | 9 |
September | Peter Bone | 14 October 2013, c512W | 16 |
October | Fiona Bruce | 3 December 2013, c613W | 23 |
November | John Randall | 9 January 2014, c277W | 17 |
December | Frank Field | 14 January 2014, c481W | 8 |
TOTAL | 139 |
Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 7 January 2014, Official Report, column 277W, on human trafficking and of 14 January 2014, Official report, columns 481-6W, on human trafficking: victim support schemes, what information she has on the whereabouts of each of the (a) 92 victims of human trafficking found in the UK in November 2013 and (b) 113 victims of human trafficking found in UK in December 2013.
Answered by Karen Bradley
The information requested is published by the Salvation Army in an annual ‘Anti-
Human Trafficking Report'. The latest report, which covers the period July
2012-June 2013, can be found at:
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/uki-cache.salvationarmy.org/fdda0251-4ab6-4bf
8-9fc0-4837891ad1c7_Fourth+draft+Year+2+AHT+VICTIM+Contract.pdf.
The report covering the period July 2013-June 2014 will be published later this
year.
Asked by: Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what the nationality and gender was of each suspected victim of trafficking referred to the Trafficking Victim Support Scheme operated by the Salvation Army in March 2014; which agency referred each person to that scheme; in which town the shelter to which those people were placed for the relevant period was; and what contact is had with each such victim to ensure their safety after they exit the scheme.
Answered by Karen Bradley
In March 2014, there were 126 referrals to the Government-funded support
service for adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales
administered by The Salvation Army. In the interests of victim safety only the
region in which the victim was encountered is provided, and not which town they
were placed in. Once an individual receives a Conclusive Grounds decision they
will be given tailored move-on support to safely return home or integrate in
the UK. Once they exit the service, no formal mechanisms exist to maintain
contact.