Lord Rosser
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(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Bates
Of course I can, and I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate for the significant work he has done, consistently, in this area. The College of Policing has changed its programme for providing information to and training for police officers on this; we have the national policing lead, Shaun Sawyer, working on that. The task force has been established, and the Crown Prosecution Service is also updating its guidelines and has already undertaken a number of training sessions for regional polices forces. There is still much more to be done, but a strong start has been made.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
The Minister will obviously be aware of speculation about the size of pending police cuts. How will any cuts in the size of police forces, of the kind suggested that the Government might be contemplating, contribute to addressing child trafficking?
Lord Bates
On the wider issue of policing, the noble Lord will be aware that the crime figures have again shown a fall in crime. Today, in England and Wales, the figures are down a further 8%—down 30% since 2010—and that has been done under a period of very tough settlements for the police, which we recognise. That is a tribute to the police and also to the police and crime commissioners. This is something we need to keep under review. I am confident that the Government have made it clear that this is a heinous crime; the powers in the Modern Slavery Act offer a real hope that we can get to grips with tackling the perpetrators of this crime and that it ought to be a priority.