Online Child Abuse

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered prevention of online child abuse.

I am honoured to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon, and to be in a room of parliamentarians who have campaigned for so long on this issue. I feel I am among friends, and I hope that together we can cover some real distance.

Tomorrow, the Office for National Statistics will release its police crime data for the past six months. It is the first time it is including online fraud and computer misuse. Fraud is a huge issue in this country—Age UK says that 53% of people over the age of 65 believe that they have been targeted by fraudsters—but the data coming out tomorrow will not include online abuse and harassment. Sexual offences are recorded, but not the age of the victim or the specific nature of the crime. I ask the Minister to look into that. For sexual offences, if we can differentiate between under 18s and over 18s, we would have a much better understanding of the scale of child abuse in this country.

Today I want to focus on online child abuse. Too often we think of child abuse as something that happens only to vulnerable children—many child protection services focus only on their definition of vulnerable children—but the truth is that the internet means that almost every child in the UK is at risk of abuse. Ministers have yet to show that they understand that. The Minister before us has an understanding of child abuse—I welcome her to her new role—and I hope she will be able to make a difference.

Let me set out the context. With respect to everyone in this Chamber, we are too old to understand the generational pressure that our youngsters are under because of social media. I was 26 when I got my first mobile phone, and I used it to text. I did not have the 24/7 immersion of the online world on my phone. We cannot understand the enormous psychological pressure that that puts on young children. They cannot get away from abuse; it follows them home. Bullying has always been here, but if I was bullied at school, when I got home and shut the door I would hopefully be safe from it. For children now, it goes on and on. We need to understand that as a country and as a Government. Seventy-eight per cent. of 12 to 15-year-olds own a mobile phone, 65% of which are smartphones, and a smartphone means access to the internet.

According to the 2015 Parent Zone survey, 67% of parents admitted to resorting to “iParenting”—that is, they are a bit busy, so they give their child the iPad as a babysitter. I understand that: children love being on the internet, and they love their iPads, but the iPad is a direct link to the outside world and its dangers. The problem is that parents often fail to appreciate the severity of the threat faced by their children, largely because they do not understand everything that their children are doing online. Half of young people living at home report that their parents know only some of what they get up to on the internet, according to an Ipsos MORI poll commissioned by Barnardo’s.

People do not grasp how sneaky—for want of a better word, and keeping it polite—abusers and groomers of children are. I will give two examples, the first being gaming. A parent might buy the child an online game as a Christmas or birthday present. When the child is online playing, say, a shoot ’em up game, a chat is going on, and that is open internationally. When I speak to girls, they tell me that they turn it off, because of the amount of sexual harassment they get; when I speak to boys, they tell me, “Oh no, it’s other boys my age who are talking to me about who we are going to shoot, and who we are going to kill.” Talking about the abuse on the screen is only a slight step from starting to groom or radicalise a child—we need to understand that.

My other example is something else that we need to understand. A police officer told me this. A family might be watching TV on a Sunday evening and the child is there, but with an iPad. The parents have no idea whom that child is talking to, or what is being said. Parents do all they can to protect their children, but they are literally letting someone into their home—someone they have no control over and have not vetted. To be honest, there are a lot of bad people out there who are deliberately using the internet to target our most vulnerable.

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

I commend the hon. Lady on securing this debate. I also welcome my hon. Friend the Minister to her place—a promotion long overdue. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that children can be open to the many different ways of harassment that she is describing. Does she, like me, want to see the producers of such platforms and products take far more responsibility for building out the problems from the design stage, rather than leaving it to parents to police what can be almost impenetrable problems?

[Sarah Champion]

The right hon. Lady makes a very key point. For film, the British Board of Film Classification will vet films and put criteria and age limits in place. That needs to be happening much more robustly with games. Gaming in particular has a nasty, misogynistic element. For example, one incredibly well known game gives extra points to someone sleeping with prostitutes who then abuses or gang-rapes them. The game might have age verification for 18, but what happens if someone is playing it with a younger brother who is eight? We need robust legislation, because we are taking those games into our homes and giving them to our children.

As I said, the mobile phone and the iPad enable children to be bullied 24/7. To give some stats to back that up, one in three children has been a victim of cyber-bullying, and almost one in four young people has come across racist or other hate messages online. According to the 2016 Childnet survey, 82% of 13 to 17-year-olds had seen or heard something hateful on the internet in the past year. By “hateful”, I mean something that has been targeted at people or communities because of their gender or transgender identity, sexual orientation, disability, race, ethnicity, nationality or religion.

To highlight the impact of bullying, I will focus on one aspect of it: the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Recently, Stonewall released truly shocking figures: nine in 10 young people have heard homophobic remarks at school; six in 10 young people have experienced homophobic bullying; and one in four young gay people has reported experiencing homophobic abuse online. Then there are the consequences—I am going goosebumpy as I read this—which are that two in five of those young LGBT people contemplate suicide and 50% self-harm. Young LGBT people are three times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers. That is what our young people have to deal with.

When I started to research online abuse, I had not considered the targeting of specific groups because of their sexuality or situation. We should think about it from the point of view of young people considering their sexuality. They will not talk to their mum or, probably, to their teacher. Where do they go to find information? They go online. Paedophiles and perpetrators deliberately target young LGBT people because they know that young LGBT people are vulnerable and isolated. They then meet and abuse them. Unfortunately, for some of our young people, that is a daily occurrence.

I also want to talk about young people and children with learning difficulties, and two things in particular. First, the overly sexualised behaviour of children with learning difficulties is often put down to their condition rather than being considered to be a cry for help, or a side-effect of being abused. We absolutely have to challenge that. One in four children is targeted with online hate because of their gender, sexual orientation, race, religion or transgender identity, but that horrifying figure goes up to 38% for someone who has learning difficulties. Those people are being deliberately targeted because of their condition. I urge the Minister to focus on those specific groups.

I will now talk about the internet world. I have been very honoured to work with a fantastic organisation called the Internet Watch Foundation, which I commend to the House. The foundation’s most recent report was in 2015. It found 68,092 pages of web images that it confirmed as child sexual abuse images. To break the stat down, that is 68,000 children who have been abused for the gratification of a paedophile, and 68,000 lives that have been decimated. We need to put support in place. That figure is 118% up on last year, an increase that tallies with what police forces and social services are telling us—such crime is growing exponentially. We have to do all that we can to prevent it.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for securing the debate, and I, too, welcome the Minister to her place. Something raised during consideration of the Policing and Crime Bill was the need for child sexual exploitation units, as well as specialist digital units, in police forces throughout the country. I am sure she shares my concern about the inconsistency of approach among police forces and, possibly, among the devolved nations.

[Sarah Champion]

I do. We should praise the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, which has done fantastic work, but I have spoken to officers on the street. Once CEOP went into the National Crime Agency, it seemed to lose its teeth and identity a little. I know the hon. Lady tabled an amendment to that Bill to that end, but we need to ensure that the whole police force understands online abuse, how to refer it and how to act on it. Online crimes are as depraved as those that happen in the real world, and in sentencing terms need to be seen as involving the same degree of violence towards a young child. We seem to think that, because online crimes happen in the virtual world, they do not matter as much, but they really do.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I very much praise the child abuse image database, which is evidently helping to deal with the backlog of forensic work on digital devices. None the less, there were 410 victims of child sexual exploitation in the first months of last year, and those victims need support. This is not just a matter of dealing with the evidence; it is about how we actually support those children afterwards. The figure of 68,000 that the hon. Lady mentioned is a terrifying number of lives to have been affected.

[Sarah Champion]

It really is, but let us scale that internationally. The Internet Watch Foundation does fantastic work. When it finds an image, it takes that image down and reports it to the police, and the police will act on it. Google and Facebook get a lot of criticism, but they are doing what they can to manage, contain, report and take down offensive images. We have really good legislation on that kind of thing in this country, and there is really good legislation in Europe, America and Canada. If any of the creators of child abuse websites are in those countries, we can do something swiftly. However, there has been a proliferation in third-world countries—particularly those in south-east Asia—of the most heinous forms of child abuse. I will not go into detail; I will just say that there are “pay as you view” systems there—sorry, it gets me every time. We cannot do anything about that, because unless those countries sign up proactively to address this issue, all that we will be doing is shifting the problem from one country to another. I urge the Minister to work with her international counterparts to get absolutely zero tolerance across the country and around the world.

[Mrs Miller]

There is one way that we can tackle that problem: through payment systems. It is important for the Minister to respond to that point with particular regard to putting pressure on international payment systems to try to address the problem that the hon. Lady is talking about. The previous Prime Minister worked hard on the use of splash pages to try to obscure the pages that internet companies may not be able to take down. Some of the very best people work in the internet industry. Does the hon. Lady not wonder, like me, why we are not seeing more innovative ways of resolving the sorts of problems she is describing?

[Sarah Champion]

I do, but given the proliferation of such abuse, we are always lagging behind. There are twisted people with the life mission of abusing children and sharing these images. Sadly, we are always playing catch-up to them, which is why we always need to send out the strongest possible message: “This is not tolerated. We will come after you, and we will prosecute you.”

We also need to accept an uncomfortable truth. A survey by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that one in five indecent images were actually generated by children themselves. I would like to explore two parts of that issue. The first is sexting. Young people are sexually curious—they always have been and they always will be—and we should celebrate that; it is part of developing. However, they need guidance on the consequences and boundaries of that and the long-term impact of putting something into the ether of the internet.

There is a lot of pressure on young people to upload more and more explicit images. The young girls I have spoken to in particular do not realise that there are perpetrators out there who go through Facebook or chatrooms harvesting images, and a large proportion of those images actually appear on paedophile websites. When a girl sends a picture to her boyfriend and he uploads it as a “joke”, it is very likely that it will not just be her boyfriend who sees it, but there will be a vile old man in a room somewhere looking at it. That is one of the things that we need to get across.

Esther Rantzen is doing some fantastic work on this issue and is looking to create an extension of ChildLine, specifically for teenagers, called “Is that okay?” Young people are saying that they are not quite sure what the boundaries are or what is appropriate, so we need to step in and tell them—probably through the internet, because that is where they get all their information from—what is okay and what the consequences are.

One of the things that started me on this crusade to do something to make people aware of the threats on the internet was that last autumn a mum came to one of my surgeries absolutely distraught and devastated because she had found that her 12-year-old was uploading very sexually explicit videos of herself to a chat website. She was getting a barrage of responses and an awful lot of pressure to keep uploading images. When the mum spoke to her daughter, the daughter said that it was fun, it was up to her, she could do it herself, there was no harm in it and the man was her boyfriend. The mum tried to explain the consequences, but the 12-year-old was not listening, so the mum went to the police. The police said, “Well, it’s just a bit of fun, and she’s choosing to do it.” The mum went to social services, and they did send round a social worker, who met with the girl and explained some of the dangers. Both services then backed off.

The uploading of the videos got more extreme. The mum telephoned round again and was told to take the phone off the daughter. As the mum explained, “That’s all very well—I can take the phone off her—but what about her friends who have phones? What about the iPad that her brother has? What about the computers at school?” The mum had come to me because she was desperate. She said, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop this. I can’t find any advice.” I created a website called Dare2Care, where we have brought together all the information about this issue. Parents are crying out for the tools and the understanding to protect their children online, and I urge the Minister to do all that she can to circulate that information.

The mum tried to take the phone off her daughter and, lo and behold, the daughter stole her phone and hid it. It was only when the mum went to the police with some of the images and videos that her daughter had taken and said, “This is what she’s doing,” that the whole child protection system suddenly swooped down. It swooped down to protect the child, but I have a mum who is devastated that she let her child down, and I am devastated that as a country we let that mum down. That mum will be representative of mums around the country. That is why I urge us to make sure that all parents and professionals are aware of this issue.

Why is this happening? The internet is a relatively new phenomenon. Sadly, we have always had paedophiles, but whereas before they might have taken a couple of years to groom a couple of children, now they will have a phishing exercise. They will chuck out a thousand emails to children, and they will target the one or two who are vulnerable. That process, which used to take years, now takes days or hours. Paedophiles’ reach has become enormous.

Another thing to which I draw hon. Members’ attention is online porn. Again, we have always had porn, but the internet is giving it a new, more sinister overtone. The NSPCC and the Children’s Commissioner surveyed 1,000 children aged between 11 and 16, and found that at least half had been exposed to online porn, with 94% having seen it by the age of 14. A Girlguiding survey found that among girls aged 11 to 21, seven in 10 feel that the increase in online porn contributes to women being treated less fairly than men, and 73% believe that pictures such as those on page 3 have that effect.

Again, I give my own story: when I was 14, a gang of us had a porno mag that we kept in our den. Looking at an image of a naked woman is very different from looking at a video of someone being gang-raped, and that is what our children are finding. There is no suggestion or imagination; this is basically an online manual of how to abuse a woman, and it is predominantly, by far, the abuse of women that is happening in porn.

From a child’s perspective, they are curious about relationships, they try to find out and they find out by going online. What do they find? Porn. I have had boys in my constituency who are really anxious about having sex because they do not want to strangle their girlfriend, and they think that is what they have to do. I have girls in my constituency who are terrified about having to endure the violence, but they want to have a boyfriend so they think that is what they have to go through. They have no background to let them see that as a fantasy. They have no background knowledge of consent, of respect and of the ability to say no.

What is the solution? Basically, it is to give all children understanding around resilience and relationships. Currently, children are not learning about the dangers of the online world, or about respect, sex or consent. Sex Education Forum found that 53% of pupils have not even learnt how to recognise grooming or sexual exploitation. Charities, experts and survivors of abuse are all united in saying that improving children’s awareness of respect for relationships from a young age is the best way to prevent child abuse. Introducing compulsory, age-appropriate resilience in relationship education in schools would show that the new Prime Minister, the new Education Secretary, the new Home Secretary and the new Minister are serious about acting to prevent more child abuse.

What I am saying is that we need to give the children the tools to protect themselves. I urge that to happen from the youngest age. For example, as soon as children go into school, I want them to be taught about “No means no”. If someone wants them to keep a secret that makes them uncomfortable, they should tell someone else and they should be listened to. I want them to understand that there are people who are bad out there and that they can tell people if they feel uncomfortable.

I am not talking about teaching five and six-year-olds about sex—nothing about that—but when two-year-olds start to go to playgroup, we teach them not to snatch toys and not to push children over, so why can we not also teach them about respecting themselves and other people in the language they will understand? The NSPCC runs the fantastic PANTS campaign, which teaches about just that: what is in your pants is yours and is private. That is a very simple message that we can get across.

The other key thing is to ensure that parents and professionals know and understand the signs and symptoms and how to tackle the suggestion and the actual online abuse that is happening. We need to arm them in advance, because as I have said, this is a generational crime. We are not, and have never been, in that submersive environment as young, malleable children, so we need to ensure that everyone who is there to protect our children understands the effects of that and also how to prevent them. I have to say—not least because we have a Select Committee Chair in the Chamber—that the Select Committees on Education, Health, Home Affairs, and Business, Innovation and Skills all recommend statutory relationship education.

I have three asks of the Minister. The first is a public awareness campaign. I have mentioned my campaign, Dare2Care, which she is free to take and use. All the major charities and academics have contributed, as well as survivors and campaigners, so all the information about preventing child abuse is there. Secondly, she knows that there is already a good e-safety course, which goes to all children in all key stages, but it focuses more on data protection and personal security than on recognising and dealing with abuse. There will be some fantastic teachers who will ensure that online safety in its broadest sense is happening, but I urge the Minister in her guidance to ensure that that is a serious component. The other, final point is about relationship and resilience education for all children to prevent online abuse. I also say to the Minister that we need to focus on literally all children, whether they are home schooled or not and whatever sort of school they go to.

The Government have done quite a lot in this area, but they need to do more, because I do not think they recognise the scale of online abuse that is happening and the potential dangers to our children. I ask the Minister to please take up this campaign, because our children depend on her.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (in the Chair)]

I advise Members that I will go to the Front-Bench speakers at 5.18 pm at the very latest and that the debate will end at 5.38 pm.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sarah Newton)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon. I wholeheartedly congratulate the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) on securing this debate and raising an issue that is so incredibly important. It is good to see so many people in the room today, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee. I cannot tell Members what a privilege and honour it was to be asked to take on this role as Minister. I cannot think of a better job in government. I will be working with people across all political parties on preventing harm to children in our society.

Sexual exploitation of children, whether online or offline, is an appalling crime. I know that the hon. Member for Rotherham has campaigned tirelessly against it, and I do not think I need to tell the House how determined and committed the Government are to tackle it robustly. I would like to give my assurance to hon. Members of my personal commitment to this. On only my second day as a new Member of Parliament back in 2010, a paedophile ring was unearthed in my constituency. I represent a beautiful, coastal, rural part of Cornwall. I grew up there and I went to school there. The community where that happened is where my family lived and I was deeply shocked. I have been on the journey of seeing what a devastating crime this is, not only for the people directly involved but for the whole wider community. I am utterly determined to use my time in this post to do everything to prevent it.

The Government are committed to improving the safety of children online and have a strong track record of working with the industry and the charity sector to achieve this. The UK Council for Child Internet Safety, which is co-chaired by Ministers, is a multi-stakeholder forum representing more than 200 organisations that are committed to internet safety. It brings together the Government, industry, law enforcement agencies, academia, charities and parenting groups to work in partnership to help to keep children and young people safe online. Its achievements include the roll-out of free network-level filters for the vast majority of broadband customers and automatic family-friendly, public wi-fi in places where children are likely to be. It has also developed guidance for providers of social media and interactive services to help them to make their platforms safer for children and young people under 18, and another for parents and carers whose children are using social media.

The hon. Lady mentioned children accessing pornographic information and images online. The Government have consulted on this and are introducing measures in the Digital Economy Bill to prevent access to pornographic material online without age verification. I am sure she will agree that this is a really important step forward. We will carefully monitor the implementation of the age verification measures.

[Sarah Champion]

I am sure the Minister is aware that almost any 12-year-old in the country can get round any blocks and devices to try to prevent them from accessing content. Will she consider piloting that verification with some young people, so that we use their experience to make sure it is as robust as she says?

[Sarah Newton]

It is a really good idea to get children involved as the implementation goes ahead and I will take that away.

We are clear that abusive and threatening behaviour online, whoever the target, is totally unacceptable. We expect and demand that social media companies have robust processes in place to address inappropriate behaviour on their sites, including the provision of clear reporting channels and prompt action to assess reports and remove behaviour that does not comply with their terms and conditions.

As we have seen today, there is an even more insidious threat facing children online: sexual exploitation. Our response to that is rightly robust and includes action by law enforcement agencies against online offenders, developing new capabilities to find and safeguard victims, and working with the internet industry to remove illegal images. All police forces and the National Crime Agency are now connected to the child abuse image database—CAID—which reduces the time taken to undertake investigations and identify victims. A new victim identification suite has been established by the National Crime Agency with access to CAID. In 2015-16, UK authorities identified more than 450 victims from abuse images, more than double the number in the previous year.

The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—I am sorry if I mispronounced the name of her constituency—rightly questioned the resources for digital forensic teams in forces around the UK. These are operational matters for local police officers, but I am aware that real improvements have been made in the prioritising of resources for this work. Officers have been working with the NCA to use the tools that are constantly being developed. It is an area where we have to be vigilant all the time through the use of technology to enhance identification and processing. I will be keeping a careful eye on that and working on it with the police and crime commissioners.

We were talking about financial resources. In 2015-16, the NCA received an additional £10 million of investment for further specialist teams to tackle online child sexual exploitation. That enabled a near doubling of its investigative capacity to tackle such exploitation. A joint NCA and GCHQ team has been established to target the most technologically sophisticated offenders.

Our law enforcement response is delivering effectiveness against offenders. In 2015, 2,861 individuals were prosecuted for indecent images of children offences, a 27% increase on the previous year. In co-ordinated activity in the nine months ending last November, undertaken by the NCA and 40 police forces, 399 children were safeguarded and 682 individuals were arrested, all of whom were suspected of making, distributing and/or possessing indecent images of children.

The NCA also works to protect children and young people from abuse. The Thinkuknow education programme provides resources for use with children and young people, helping them to identify the risks that they may face both online and offline, to understand how to protect themselves and to know how to seek further support. In 2015-16 alone, just over 1.5 million primary and just under 2 million secondary school children received face-to-face education sessions from Thinkuknow’s network of more than 130,000 professionals, and the number of children and young people reached through Thinkuknow was over 205,000 more than in the previous year. Thinkuknow’s educational resources, including films, cartoons, lesson plans and websites, educate children about keeping themselves safe from sexual abuse and exploitation.

As several hon. Members rightly pointed out, schools have a critical role to play in protecting children from the risk of abuse online. E-safety is now covered at all key stages in the curriculum, including key stages 1 and 2, reflecting the fact that younger children are increasingly online. I will very seriously consider the recommendations made by the hon. Member for Rotherham today about what more can be done in that curriculum development.

Safeguarding is now a key consideration in all Ofsted school inspections. As part of their assessment of safeguarding, inspectors need to consider pupils’ understanding of how to keep themselves safe from relevant risks such as exploitation and extremism, including—

Orgreave: Public Inquiry into Policing

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd]

I am happy to refer to it as an incident—the word that the hon. Gentleman uses—but it is more important to ensure that we look carefully at all the evidence. Once I have had a look at all the evidence and have reached a conclusion, I will be able to come back and describe it as what it really was.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

Orgreave is in my constituency and people still come to my surgery in tears after reliving the horror they saw when they went with their families to picket peacefully, the violent abuse that they suffered and the vile media campaign afterwards. Will the Home Secretary please give them justice and peace by holding a public inquiry?

[Amber Rudd]

The hon. Lady makes a clear and passionate case as she always does in the House when she campaigns. My office spoke to the campaign group this morning and I will be meeting the group in September. I appreciate the levels of distress, hurt and historical anger that are part of this case, which is why I will take it seriously.

Independent Advocates for Trafficked Children

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, I think for the first time, Mr Streeter. I would like to add to the compliments that have been given to my right hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) for securing this debate, for the campaigning work that she has been doing tirelessly and vigorously around this one issue and for the work that she has done on modern slavery and on the APPG on human trafficking and modern day slavery. That is not just to bolster my right hon. Friend’s ego, but because I really hope the Minister takes seriously the weight of her experience and the weight of support from colleagues across the House when she called for this debate.

The scale of human trafficking in the UK and the implications for the victims are far beyond most people’s comprehension. As the hon. Member for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) said, last year 982 children were recorded as being victims of trafficking by the UK Human Trafficking Centre’s national referral mechanism, but it is accepted—and the Centre accepts—that that is a massive underrepresentation of the true extent of the problem. The Government’s own estimate puts the total number of people in slavery in the UK at around 13,000, with approximately 3,000 of those thought to be under the age of 18.

Trafficked children are some of our country’s most vulnerable children, often suffering years of abuse and exploitation. Those children are at significantly greater risk of harm. That remains true, to our great shame, even after they are in the care of the state. In its 2013 report, the Centre for Social Justice estimated that 60% of trafficked children in local authority care go missing, and that those who go missing are often highly likely to be returned to exploitation. Often children are so terrified and brainwashed by their trafficker that they will leave at the first possible opportunity and return to that abuser. Trafficked children are the responsibility of us all, yet their suffering is often overlooked and misunderstood, even by the professionals who work most closely with them. It is for this reason that these children need someone independent by their side and on their side as they navigate their way through the immigration, social care and justice systems.

Section 48 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 sets out provisions for trafficked children to be assigned an independent child trafficking advocate. Their role is to represent and support the child, promote the child’s wellbeing, assist in obtaining advice and representation and hold public authorities to account; their sole aim is to support that vulnerable child. As we have heard, a system of independent child trafficking advocates was piloted in 23 local authorities in England from September 2014 and into 2015. The independent evaluation, conducted by the University of Bedfordshire, found that the trial was successful and the service helped to keep children “safely visible”. Most importantly, the children themselves overwhelmingly found the role of their advocate positive in their lives and described them as “reliable and trustworthy”.

Children’s charities such as ECPAT—I thank it for all the help that it has given me on this issue—and Barnardo’s, all the UK’s children’s commissioners, the British Association of Social Workers, and many more have been campaigning for legal guardianship or advocacy for trafficked children for many years. It is a concept that is recognised and valued internationally. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its recent examination of the UK’s implementation of its recommendations, once again urged the UK to adopt:

“Statutory independent guardians for all unaccompanied and separated children”.

Further, both the Northern Irish and the Scottish Governments, as we have heard, have included independent guardians in their new trafficking legislation. Both countries have accepted, without delay, the need for such a system, and are currently drafting regulations to create their own statutory systems, but this Government cannot even keep to their own deadline of March this year to make a simple decision on the future of the scheme.

In the meantime, hundreds, if not thousands, of trafficked children have been denied their right to independent advocacy. The provision for independent child trafficking advocates in the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was the only substantial, dedicated part of the legislation for children, yet it is the only part to not be enacted. Adult victims of trafficking in the UK receive a specialist response from trained organisations used to working with victims, but that is not the case for children who end up in the care system, often supported by social workers and others who may have had no training whatever on trafficking.

Without independent advocates, some of the most vulnerable children in our country, including British children trafficked internally for sexual exploitation, must face the complexities and bureaucracies of our care, justice and immigration systems alone. The pilot was criticised and the evaluation found a complex picture of children going missing, but the Government used this as an excuse for why the trial was not immediately continued and expanded.

Children going missing is a complex issue and not something that can be solved with one simple solution. To expect that advocates could stop children going missing is simplistic and misleading, and is actually not the main focus of the job. There are multiple factors that can lead to a child going missing: being brainwashed to return to their traffickers; inappropriate or unsafe placements; failure to apprehend traffickers; the criminalisation of children who have been exploited; and different agencies failing to communicate. It is, of course, hoped that having independent advocates will help to decrease those issues and, in turn, help to reduce a child’s likelihood of going missing, but we must remember that not all trafficked children go missing.

Of the children in the trial that did go missing and had an advocate, more than half had not actually met their advocate due to delays in referrals to Barnardo’s by the local authorities. In fact, only 19% of all referrals to Barnardo’s by local authorities were on time. Will the Government commit to investigating the causes of the extensive delays in referring children to the advocacy service?

Under the Modern Slavery Act, since November 2015, public authorities have had a duty to notify the Secretary of State if they come across a potential victim of trafficking. How many such reports have been made, in particular for children, and what is being done to ensure that front-line practitioners know they have this new duty? Furthermore, will the Government address the issue of visibility of advocates in their relevant local authorities, immigration channels, local safeguarding boards and the criminal justice process, as highlighted in the evaluation?

It is simply not acceptable, or fair, that children who have been exploited are given such a poor service. The scale of trafficking and abuse in Rotherham highlighted the inability of public authorities to deal with exploitation cases, which left thousands of children disbelieved, disengaged and vulnerable to further exploitation. A system that has been independently shown to benefit these children, to build trust and to increase their visibility to services is not a luxury, but a necessity, if we wish to tackle modern slavery and child exploitation.

Will the Minister clarify how the Government plan to eradicate modern slavery and be “world leading” in their response to trafficking, when they are delaying a scheme that is known to benefit and protect children and is already established in many European countries? I agree with the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and ask whether the Minister thinks it is acceptable that children who have been trafficked in Scotland or Northern Ireland will be guaranteed better provision and support than those in England and Wales. Will the Government now act immediately to establish a national scheme of independent child advocates based on the model that was independently evaluated as a success? The Minster has it within her gift to simply tweak, test and modify elements of the scheme throughout its delivery. It is immoral that the Government are procrastinating on the issue and denying trafficked children their right to independent advocacy and the chance to a better, safer future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Karen Bradley]

I hope the right hon. Lady will forgive me, but I have a little more progress to make.

I welcome the comments from all hon. Members on the comparison with Scotland and Northern Ireland, but it is important that we reflect on the relative scale and complexities of the problem in England and Wales, where we need to work with many different social services, legal systems and police forces. I assure Members that we have taken on board all the learning from the Scottish Guardianship Service, but the circumstances and the models are different. The service in Scotland is only for children for whom no one has taken parental responsibility, and in such circumstances children in England and Wales will receive support from a social worker and, if there are care proceedings, a children’s guardian. We have kept wider criteria for receiving an advocate in the Modern Slavery Act. We have carefully considered what has been done in Scotland, and we have taken much learning from the schemes in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but it is important that we reflect on the differences between the legal systems.

A number of serious questions raised in the model testing tell us that, although the model shows great promise, it is not universally effective. I am convinced that independent advocacy has an important and central role to play in supporting children, but as the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner has told me in correspondence, further work is needed to get the model fit for purpose. He remains concerned about the lack of evidence from the trial. Although advocates can clearly play a crucial role, we need to consider the whole package, which is centred on each child’s individual needs. This is simply too important to get wrong. We need to ensure that all child victims of modern slavery are properly identified and supported.

Turning to what I intend to do, I am pleased to announce a full package of measures that, collectively, will improve the support we offer to child victims of trafficking. I make it clear so that no one is in any doubt that I am fully committed to commencing section 48 of the Modern Slavery Act and to the full national roll-out across England and Wales of independent advocates for all trafficked children. To support that, following the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner’s advice, I also propose two interim measures to improve advocacy now and to prepare for the implementation of the new system as soon as possible.

First, I propose to introduce independent child trafficking advocates at three early adopter sites. The competition for providing those sites will be launched this summer. The sites will enable us to refine the model that was previously tested, including by increasing the speed of referral and the number of people and organisations that can make such referrals; testing the use of quasi-legal powers by advocates and the impact that that will have on their effectiveness and their relationships with statutory agencies; and training and recruiting advocates with specialist skills, such as in certain languages or in dealing with particular forms of abuse, so that they can give more targeted support.

Secondly, in collaboration with the Department for Education, the Home Office will commission a training programme for existing independent advocates, who are statutorily provided to all looked-after children. The training will improve their awareness and understanding of the specific needs of trafficked children and how to support them. But that is not enough. I am also determined to address the other concerns raised in both the trial and the feedback from right hon. and hon. Members.

I am therefore pleased to announce that this year the Home Office will establish and launch a new child trafficking protection fund, with up to £3 million of Government funding initially available over the next three years. The fund will be targeted at addressing two key issues where advocacy alone appears to be insufficient and where alternative and additional approaches are needed. The first aim is to reduce the number of children who go missing or who have contact with traffickers. The second is to support children from high-priority states, from which we continually see high numbers of children trafficked to the UK. I want to explore how we can best meet the needs of such children and disrupt the traffickers who target them. We all agree that a culturally targeted approach is likely to be effective and, having listened to stakeholders, we have decided to launch the fund to promote innovation from stakeholders in all sectors who work with trafficked children and know how best to meet their needs. Critically, such discrete funding could support bespoke local and innovative strategies.

[Sir Alan Meale in the Chair]

[Sarah Champion]

Can the Minister provide a bit more clarity? Is this Home Office money? Is it targeted at UK work? What does she mean by “this year”? Is it this academic year, financial year or chronological year?

[Karen Bradley]

That may be one of the detailed points on which I will have to get back to the hon. Lady. I will talk about some of the other points at this stage, but maybe I will write to her with the specifics.

I want to address the concerns raised about accommodation. We are doing two things about that. First, as the Immigration Minister announced earlier this year, we are taking forward plans to review local authority support for non-European economic are migrant children who have been trafficked. The review will help improve our understanding of specialist local authority provisions for that group as we implement the Modern Slavery Act.

Additionally, the Department for Education is rolling out training for foster carers and support workers that will equip them to understand better the complexities facing unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who have been trafficked, and to gain their trust to prevent them from running away from safe placements. We are already piloting a new way of delivering the national referral mechanism. The pilot is testing new models of identifying victims, processing cases and making effective decisions. It will help ensure that all victims, including children, can access the support that they need. To underpin all that work, we are developing new statutory guidance on identifying and supporting potential victims of modern slavery and trafficking, on which we intend to consult later this year. It includes specific guidance on how best to support child victims of modern slavery.

Looking more widely, many services that trafficked children receive will be the same as for all children, although tailored to them individually. That is particularly true for children in need or looked-after children. Although only part of our approach, incorporating provision for all trafficked children into what is already there, not increasing their isolation, is the way forward. Setting trafficked children apart runs the risk, among other things, of reinforcing their sense of isolation and further increasing their vulnerabilities.

I appreciate that many hon. Members, like me, may be frustrated that establishing independent child trafficking advocates will take some time, as we need to find and train them, and that they may have concerns about how child victims will be better supported in the short term. That is why I have put forward a range of shorter and longer-term proposals and addressed areas where advocacy does not appear to be the only or best solution. We need to get it right. We must strike the right balance between requirements in secondary legislation, statutory guidance and a provider contract, and I need to engage further with right hon. and hon. Members and others to determine how best to do that, including informally via the modern slavery strategy implementation group, with key voluntary and statutory partners and, of course, via a public consultation exercise, followed in due course by the necessary parliamentary processes.

That will happen in step with a public procurement exercise to seek a provider for the national service. We will monitor outcomes for children who have an advocate in the early adopter sites, and look at whether children are generally being helped across a range of key areas including safety, wellbeing, health, education and criminal justice. We will use the learning from the early adopter sites to refine the model for independent child trafficking advocates, which will then be rolled out across England and Wales.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mike Penning]

We will work with our European partners and other partners around the world to ensure that our criminal justice system works.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

To be effective, the police need to be trusted by the community that they serve. Truth is built by being honest about the past. Will the Home Secretary finally do the right thing and grant the request of the Orgreave Truth and Justice campaign and nearly 100 cross-party MPs for a full inquiry into what exactly happened on 18 June 32 years ago in the battle of Orgreave?

[Mike Penning]

The hon. Lady raises a very, very important point, and, as Hillsborough has proved, the Home Secretary has a track record of looking at that sort of thing with a very open mind and in a way that perhaps no Home Secretary has ever done. We will look at Orgreave—indeed we are looking at it at the moment. Confidence in our police can be there only if we have a transparent system for dealing with complaints, and that is exactly what the Bill that is going through the House is all about.

Brain Family: Deportation

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I say to my hon. Friend that when dealing with issues of migration it is important that we take steps both outside Europe, where the majority of net migration continues to come from, and inside Europe. Therefore, our approach is to look at this in both ways, but, as I have indicated, I will certainly reflect on the further representations that are made to me.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

First, I would like to express my heartfelt sympathy to the Brain family, who came here in good faith and have been let down by this Government. Their case is yet another that highlights the chaos of the immigration system under this Government. The Brains’ situation will be familiar to many Members in this House, who will have seen their own constituents faced with deportation owing to changes in the immigration rules. Let us be clear about what is involved here. This family came to the UK on a Government scheme specifically designed to attract people to relocate here. They entered legally, they have integrated into their community and they have fully embraced its way of life. That they should now be faced with deportation because of Government changes shows the problems caused by the constant chopping and changing of the immigration rules by the Home Office. These changes are retrospectively made, in a desperate attempt to meet targets on net migration that the Government have consistently missed and show no sign of meeting any time soon—it just adds insult to injury.

The highlands of Scotland have for centuries faced the problem of depopulation. The population of Scotland has barely grown in the past 100 years. As the right hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) correctly said yesterday; the Brains’ case is not an issue of immigration, but of emigration. Our immigration system must allow us the flexibility to meet the needs of our communities. It must not focus solely on an arbitrary number put in place from Whitehall. Of course there must be rules to govern immigration, and it is important that these rules are enforced, but this is also an issue of compassion. Should we really be uprooting a young family, who came to the UK legally and in good faith, from the lives they have built here? Should we be deporting children whose whole lives have been here, to a country they barely know?

I would like to ask the Minister a few questions. Why do the Brain family no longer qualify under the original visa terms under which they came to the UK? I understand what the Minister said about extending the application process, but given that these terms were changed by the Government, what support has the Home Office provided to assist this family? Why is the Home Office making this an issue of immigration, as opposed to one of emigration, as under the original scheme?

[James Brokenshire]

I say to the hon. Lady that the help provided has been the discretion that has already been applied in this case, not once, but twice, in allowing extra time for the family to regularise their stay. It is therefore completely incorrect to suggest that we have taken a blinkered approach or have simply applied a strict one, although she has sought to criticise us for that.

On post-study work, it is important that the House understands that we made these changes not to target some simple number, but to deal with abuse in system, which this Government inherited from the last Labour Government. We had students arriving in this country who could not speak English and were using this route as a mechanism not to study but to work. We have, however, shown that we are prepared to listen in this case. In continuing to reflect on it, we have already taken representations from the hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber, who is representing his constituents. As I have indicated, that is what we will do, but I make the point that the family have known for at least five years what the requirements would be. They have known of the need to get a graduate-level job. We wish them success in securing that, and obviously I look forward to hearing further representations on this matter.

European Agenda on Security

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 General Committees

[The Chair]

We now have until 3.35 pm for questions to the Minister. I remind members of the Committee that those questions should be brief. Subject to my discretion, it is open to a member to ask related supplementary questions.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, and I thank you for your guidance on the protocol of the Committee. Will the Minister provide some information about how the British Government were involved in drafting “The European Agenda on Security”?

[James Brokenshire]

Obviously, the agenda is a Commission document, but as I indicated in my opening remarks, we see it as being led by the Council. These issues were debated at meetings of the Justice and Home Affairs Council and they continue to be debated; we have a further extraordinary meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council later this week. Through that mechanism, issues of security, what the right processes are and how we work together were addressed; the UK made interventions at Council meetings; and the internal security strategy—the Council-led document that I referred to—was created. Obviously, COSI, which is now implementing the strategy, reports back to the Council.

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Taking it to the next step, will he provide clarity on the steps that the Government will take to implement the agenda once it is adopted and what plans the UK has to help tackle common EU security threats?

[James Brokenshire]

As I have indicated, the internal security strategy, which was renewed by member states in June of last year, sets out a clear agenda. It contains much of what is in the Commission’s communication, although the Council very much leads on it: the strategy is being implemented by the Council and that implementation is being led by COSI. We welcome that, as it ensures that member states are clearly in the driving seat of the agenda’s implementation and will get regular feedback on it. As has been indicated, a Europol counter-terrorism centre was established in January of this year, in response to a call from the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers at Council on 20 November. That new centre, which acts as a platform for member states to increase information sharing, is a good example of how the agenda is being implemented.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I call—

[Sarah Champion]

rose—

[The Chair]

Order. I can only call those who are standing. Only one Member was standing at that moment, and that was Kelvin Hopkins.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Brokenshire]

It is important to recognise that national security is a member state competence. In other words, the lead responsibility for determining a country’s national security policy rightly lies with that member state. We guard that very clearly, but it is also important to recognise that EU membership gives UK police forces and law enforcement authorities automatic access to a broad range of tools and databases that help combat transnational crime. Those include Europol; the Prüm Council decisions on fingerprint and DNA exchange—when fully operational, those will allow DNA exchanges in 15 minutes, which simply is not possible through other mechanisms—Eurojust, the EU’s judicial co-operation unit, in which we participate; the European Criminal Records Information Sharing System; data on passenger name records; the second-generation Schengen information system; and, of course, the European arrest warrant.

That combination of mechanisms that is available to law enforcement authorities would be difficult to replicate. Those mechanisms would all need to be reassessed and negotiated, and alternative arrangements would need to be put in place. That would be challenging. We clearly benefit from those structures at the moment in guarding our domestic security and confronting transnational crime, which does not respect borders, and we therefore need to continue to work closely with our European partners and use the most effective mechanisms to protect our citizens.

[Sarah Champion]

This is my final question. The right hon. Member for Ashford highlighted the fact that the Commission document was drafted before the Paris terror attack in November 2015 and the events that followed in Brussels. Have the Government given further consideration to whether any additional steps are now needed?

[James Brokenshire]

In response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford, I should say that it is always the Government’s intention to schedule debates in a timely fashion, although I regret and acknowledge that that was not possible in this case. We continue to take debate recommendations seriously, although I think that we all recognise that there have been opportunities to debate counter-terrorism and security through oral statements on the Floor of the House and other debates. There have been opportunities for right hon. and hon. Members to debate the approach that the UK takes and the context of the broader European security agenda.

I say in direct response to the hon. Lady’s questions that we keep these matters under close review. We hold ongoing discussions with our European partners. Following the attacks in Paris and Brussels, we stepped up operational arrangements at the border and we continue to consider with European partners how best to strengthen things further. I touched on work that we want to take forward in Europe on firearms. I have also highlighted work that we continue to press on criminal record information sharing and encouraging other member states to put additional data into ECRIS and the second-generation Schengen information system to benefit the domestic security of the UK and all the other European countries. Europol’s ongoing work on taking down propaganda from Daesh and other terrorist organisations effectively mirrors at EU level the work that we do through the counter-terrorism internet referral unit.

We continue to advance practical steps. Clearly, the approval of the passenger name records directive is another important milestone and highlights the need for collaboration, co-operation and continuing to debate, discuss and work with our European partners. We must recognise that member states lead on national security—that is a member state competence—but, equally, that we gain strength from good co-operation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sarah Champion]

I welcome the opportunity to debate this important matter. I thank the members of the European Scrutiny Committee for their work on examining “The European Agenda on Security”.

In the past 15 years, the nature of global terrorism has changed dramatically, with a deadly combination of home-grown terror and sophisticated global networks. Both do their utmost to cause maximum harm to citizens across the world. The current UK terror threat remains at severe, as it does across the majority of the EU. We must give our law enforcement bodies access to the information and methods that they know will work. We must do all we can to work together with our European counterparts to keep our respective populations safe. That is why Labour strongly supports common EU policing measures and a cross-EU response. That is why Labour believes that our membership of the EU makes us stronger and better able to tackle emerging cross-border security threats.

We welcome the focus of the proposed agenda and the five key principles outlined, which build on previous structures that are working well. We welcome the fact that the agenda addresses the terrorist threat that is faced by every EU country. The events of Brussels, Paris and elsewhere have shown us how real the threat is and how irrelevant borders are to those who perpetrate such heinous crimes.

The agenda recognises and identifies rapidly changing crime and security threats, including organised crime, terrorism and cybercrime, in Britain and across the EU. Indeed, cybercrime was only an emerging threat when the 2010 EU internal security strategy was agreed, but it is now a reality and a serious security threat that we all face. “The European Agenda on Security” gives our police and security services the cross-EU integrated response that they need to tackle our common security threats, and that is why Labour is pleased to support its implementation. The agenda’s importance to our ongoing national security is clear.

Unaccompanied Children

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Tuesday 19th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) for securing such a timely and appropriate debate. I also thank him because whenever I hear him in Committees or the Chamber, he is always moderate and thoughtful and really has the best interests of the most vulnerable people in his heart.

Nobody who has heard today’s speeches can be in any doubt about the level of concern Members have about the growing number of unaccompanied children in Europe, or their frustration at the Government’s response. The debate is timely as it comes just a week before the House will have the chance to consider an amendment to the Immigration Bill that would require the Government to relocate and support 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children from across Europe. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) for pushing that issue for a long time.

The amendment is small but significant, with the potential to provide safety and stability to children for whom conflicts in their home countries are far beyond their comprehension, let alone their control. As Members will know, the amendment was tabled by my colleague Lord Dubs, himself a refugee who arrived in Britain in 1939 as one of almost 10,000 Jewish children saved by the Kindertransport. The quote from 1938 that the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) read out was therefore particularly pertinent.

Lord Dubs’ amendment passed in the Lords by more than 100 votes and has the support of a wide range of charities and campaign groups. It will have the support of Labour Members in the Commons next week, and I implore all Members of all parties to support it. I do not pretend that the amendment will solve the growing problem on its own. The number of unaccompanied children who are now making such treacherous journeys to Europe is an incredibly serious and complex issue. Indeed, as the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate said, two more children died making the journey last night.

In February this year, children accounted for more than a third of all refugees and migrants in Europe, compared with one in 10 in June 2015. Beyond the refugee crisis, 982 of the 3,266 people identified as potential victims of trafficking in the UK last year were children, who are vulnerable to unimaginable exploitation and violence. As with so many other challenges we face, our response to unaccompanied children in Europe, whether they are here as refugees or as the victims of traffickers, will require an EU-wide solution and EU countries working together to address a problem that cuts across borders.

I echo the points made by the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Heidi Allen). There needs to be an improved framework to support migrant children in Europe and reduce the risks of them falling into the hands of traffickers or suffering sexual exploitation and violence. Recent reports by UNICEF and the Children’s Society have emphasised the urgency of finding a more durable solution, and I hope that the Minister will reflect on that in his response.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and Save the Children estimate that there are currently 24,000 unaccompanied refugee children in Europe, so we believe that 3,000 would be a reasonable figure for the UK to take at this stage. That would be in addition to the number already being taken under the vulnerable persons relocation scheme, a scheme that we fully support but that does not allow the resettlement of vulnerable refugees who have already reached Europe. Given the sheer scale and immediacy of the problem of unaccompanied refugee children in Europe, we believe that the amendment is fair and realistic.

Now for some asks. The Minister has stated that he is sorting out the issues relating to the Dublin III resolution, but so far he has not told us about the facts. Will he do so today? Does he agree with the UNHCR, Save the Children and countless other bodies on that matter? If he does not, what alternative proposal do the Government have in mind? If the Minister can introduce some constructive proposals today, we would like to hear them, because of course we have a vote in a week. My right hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) was right to bring up the issues relating to the support given to local authorities. Will the Minister update us on the support that the Government are making available for local authorities that are resettling unaccompanied child refugees? For how long will such funding and support be continued?

I am sure the Minister will appreciate that it is not enough to simply allow children to find sanctuary in this country; we must afford them the security and safety that we would expect for our own children. Yet in April 2013, the Government implemented changes to the legal aid system that mean that separated or unaccompanied migrant children are no longer able to get free advice and representation for their immigration cases. However, just yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that the former Lord Chancellor acted ultra vires when he made changes to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 using secondary legislation.

The cases that were affected by the changes to the 2012 Act primarily involved children who have non-asylum immigration claims. Their claims are often about their right to a family and private life, and the children have often grown up in the UK in foster homes and have no lasting connections to their country of origin. Cases include those of lone children making citizenship applications; child trafficking victims; children involved in international adoption processes; and children who have been abandoned or estranged from their care-givers.

The restriction in legal aid means that some of the most vulnerable children are left without clarity as to their immigration status as they turn 18, which affects their access to housing, education and employment. I thank the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) for making that point more completely. Without legal aid, the children affected no longer have independent access to legal professionals who can help establish their immigration status and advise them on their options to find a permanent solution. They are at increased risk of removal to countries to which they have little, if any, connection. Worse still, children desperate to resolve their legal issues are faced with the intense risk of being exploited through unregulated labour, or of being sexually exploited or groomed by criminal networks, because of the need to raise the funds to pay for their legal fees. Can the Minister tell us that he will look into reinstating legal aid for all separated children for their immigration cases?

Although the debate is timely, it is also depressingly familiar. For a number of years Labour has been calling on the Government to do more to help vulnerable refugees fleeing violence, abuse and oppression, but at every stage they have been reluctant to do so. They must recognise and respond to public and parliamentary pressure and support unaccompanied children in Europe. Children are vulnerable to the most horrifying exploitation and abuse. I end where the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate began: the Government must offer these children not just a temporary safe haven but a lasting solution, and the opportunity to make the UK their safe and secure childhood home.

draft Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Code of Practice) regulations 2016

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 General Committees

That the Committee has considered the draft Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Code of Practice) Regulations 2016.—(Karen Bradley.)

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I apologise if I was late, Mr Nuttall—I got caught up with the Secretary of State—but it is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

The magnitude and scale of human trafficking and modern slavery across the world are beyond most people’s comprehension. The United Kingdom, in common with every country on earth, is not spared from this insidious crime. The National Crime Agency reports that last year 3,266 people, 928 of whom where children, were identified as potential victims of trafficking in the UK. That is a 40% increase on the number of potential victims in 2014.

The trafficking of human beings, whether for sexual exploitation, forced labour, domestic servitude, organ harvesting or child trafficking, is part of serious, internationally organised crime. Perpetrators are often linked across a number of international networks, and can change their routes and methods faster than the international and national authorities can keep up.

The UK, in common with many other countries in western Europe, is primarily a destination country for victims of trafficking. In 2015 potential victims of trafficking found in the UK were reported to be from 102 different countries of origin. The global scale of trafficking, the number of transit countries through which a victim is transported and the sheer diversity of trafficking routes associated with western Europe make human trafficking all the more difficult to tackle. Our police and border forces must, therefore, have use of the most effective powers to pursue, disrupt and serve justice on those engaged in human trafficking.

Throughout its passage in both Houses, the Modern Slavery Bill was approached in a collaborative and cross-party manner. The Act and the regulations that have followed have been much stronger as a result, and I am genuinely grateful to the Minister for making that so. I admire her courage and conviction in getting the right legislation in place and allowing us all to have a strong debate about it.

Given the scale and complexity of human trafficking, I am sure that the Minister appreciates that the code of practice before the Committee today must be fit for purpose. It must support our police and border forces to make arrests without ambiguity and, as such, to deal effectively with maritime trafficking.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

As the hon. Lady knows, victims of trafficking are held in our care for 45 days in hostels, but are then released. Although I may be wrong, I understand that once they are released there is no monitoring of them. For all we know, they might be going back to the people who have trafficked them. I hope that the Minister will comment on that in her summing up. Does the hon. Lady agree with me, however, that it is important that we keep a close and watchful eye on them?

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree with the point made by the hon. Gentleman. I am particularly interested in the children who have been trafficked, and one of my concerns is that up to 60% of children who have come into local authority care and whom we believe to have been trafficked then go missing, within the timeframe he was talking about. One can only assume that they are back in the clutches of the traffickers and abusers, so yes, that is very worrying. I know that ECPAT UK is doing further research into the data, but the figure for the proportion of children going missing, while not as high as 60%, still seems high. I agree that the same is happening with adults. We need to be much more mindful of that, because these victims need our support to enable them to rebuild their lives and to go home, if that is what they want to do. The Government need to give more attention to that.

As I was saying, I want to ensure that the code of practice receives sufficient scrutiny to be able to deliver its objectives. I thank Human Rights at Sea, ECPAT UK and the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner for their expert analysis and the guidance they have given to me on this code that enables me to recommend the following additions. Crucially, I urge the Minister to include an additional exception under paragraph 3.1(a) on urgent interviews. Currently, the code allows for an urgent interview to take place away from a police station or other authorised place of detention if any delay would result in an interference with, or harm to, evidence or people or serious damage to property. I believe it is necessary to include an additional exception under paragraph 3.1(a) for when the consequence of a delay could lead to potential or imminent loss of life. That would cover possible eventualities when trafficked individuals may be trapped in vehicles, containers or other forms of trafficking apparatus. This may become apparent on, or after, the point of arrest of a suspected perpetrator or subsequently during initial inquiries and should be explicitly articulated in the code to prevent potential or actual loss of life.

Paragraph 4 of the code outlines the power to obtain information. I believe that paragraph 4 should include references to existing stop-and-search powers as well as the existing powers outlined in the code, to ensure officials are able to use all powers available to them. The paragraph, as drafted, is restricted to obtaining information on the ship only. I recommend that it is broadened to include obtaining relevant information under the Act on the quayside, in the area of a port, in a harbour, in warehouses, in packing sheds or in the immediate locality of the ship. I also recommend that this power is extended in order to be exercised on tenders, liberty boats and all other watercraft used to re-supply ships.

There may be the need for a small number of additional clarifications, particularly regarding the definitions of specific terms in the code. I would be more than happy to write to the Minister about those issues to ensure that we avoid any ambiguity on the implementation of the code, as we all want it to be as effective as possible.

The code does not make reference to the College of Policing’s authorised professional practice on modern slavery. I understand that the code relates to constables and other enforcement officials and is specific to maritime enforcement, but it is important to ensure consistency of practice across police activity in relation to modern slavery. Will the Minister consider updating the code to ensure that it makes reference to the College of Policing’s APP and other professional codes of practice? Likewise, I urge the Minister to redraft elements of the code so that it has a closer relationship to other codes of practice under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. That issue has been raised by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner who has written to the Home Office about the inconsistencies in the code of which I have given examples.

Will the Minister consider revising the code in the areas I have outlined using the powers granted to her under paragraph 5(5) of schedule 2 to the Act?

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

There are obviously challenges in relation to dealing with certain communities with organised gangs where, as the hon. Gentleman says, there may well be language difficulties. Police and crime commissioners are finding many innovative ways around that. Looking at their recruitment policies and at how volunteers and special constables in particular can be used to ensure that the language skills are available is a very good idea, which has been adopted by some PCCs around the country.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

On Friday, the South Yorkshire PCC announced the loss of 850 police staff because of Government cuts. Also last week, the National Crime Agency’s application to the Home Office for support for Rotherham’s 1,400 victims of child abuse was rejected. How are we meant to bring down child sexual exploitation when the Government are cutting police resources?

[Mrs May]

I indicated earlier that overall the Government are protecting police budgets when the precept is taken into account. We have also made money available to the national policing lead precisely in relation to the issue of child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation, and ensured that the National Crime Agency has the resources it needs to be able to do that job. The hon. Lady has an excellent record in dealing with this issue. Her constituency has faced particularly challenging times as a result of child sexual exploitation, and I can assure her that I and other Ministers involved take the issue very seriously indeed. That is why we have taken steps such as setting up the Goddard inquiry, and why we have made money available to the national policing lead in order to better co-ordinate the work that is done in this area.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Champion Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. First, we have generally seen an increase in the number of reports of rape and other sexual violence. It is good that people have more confidence to come forward, precisely because of the support they now feel they will get from the police and other services. It is, of course, important to ensure that support is available to individuals, for example at Rape Crisis centres. I am pleased to say that over the past five years the Government have made money available to ensure that new Rape Crisis centres have opened, unlike under the previous Labour Government when they were closing.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

It is believed that 170,000 women and girls in the UK have endured female genital mutilation. It is right that the Government have introduced legislation and are funding projects in Africa and training NHS and education staff, but without significant UK grassroots intervention to change cultural norms, we will never prevent this horrific child abuse. When will the Secretary of State change her approach and invest in helping communities to prevent FGM, rather than failing to prosecute once the crime has been committed?

[Mrs May]

As the hon. Lady knows, we have taken the question of forced genital mutilation extremely seriously, which is why we have significantly strengthened the law on FGM and have issued a range of materials to support professionals in being able to understand these issues and spot signs of somebody being taken out of the country. I commend the work of the all-party parliamentary group on female genital mutilation and, in particular, of the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), who has ensured that information is made available to communities and community groups about what can be done to prevent forced genital mutilation and to ensure that people can spot the signs and stop it taking place.