Modern Slavery Act 2015: 10th Anniversary

Debate between Sarah Russell and Chris Murray

Thursday 27th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) for securing the debate; I know she is a great champion for these issues.

The Global Slavery Index estimates that 122,000 people are living in conditions of slavery in the UK, and over 19,000 victims were referred to the national referral mechanism in the last year alone. My constituency of Congleton is absolutely beautiful, and most of it has a low crime rate by national standards, but this problem is so widespread that it will be occurring in my constituency, because it is occurring everywhere. The figure of 122,000 people is significant; that is roughly one and a half times the number of people in my constituency.

We often talk in this Chamber about violence against women and girls. That subject is extremely important, and I will talk about it in the context of modern slavery, but of those who were referred to the national referral mechanism last year, 72% were men. The people most common referred were UK nationals. Children constituted about 31% of referrals. In 48% of those cases, the referral was for criminal exploitation, and about 78% of those referred were boys. It is crucial that we keep up the pressure to reduce and remove violence against women and girls, but it is critical that we are aware of how much violence there still is in society against boys and men.

There are lots of different ways in which modern slavery occurs in the UK, and its diversity makes it more difficult to tackle. For men, it often occurs in the agricultural and building sectors, and in takeaways. The growth in the takeaway sector in the UK means that large numbers of takeaways are operating from warehouses, where the workers are completely unseen. Many of them are earning incredibly little. If people can order a takeaway for less money than it would cost to cook the same meal at home, the chances are that that has come about through modern slavery.

[Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about industries such as takeaways being sites of modern slavery. In my local council, East Lothian, there has been a pilot scheme looking specifically at the takeaway industry, and at what regulations local authorities can put in place to allow them to enter premises to see what kind of modern slavery is taking place. It is an interesting pilot, and I wanted to draw her attention and the attention of the House to it.

[Mrs Russell]

I thank my hon. Friend for drawing that to my attention; I am very interested to hear about it. I am pleased to report that the overwhelming majority of takeaways in my constituency remain physical premises that also operate as restaurants, but I am aware that that is not necessarily the case in the whole of my local authority area, and certainly not across the whole country.

I was shocked when I found out about the large number of children, especially boys, who are being referred, and about what is happening. Often, older gang members find vulnerable young boys, some as young as 10 or 11, and ask them to “look after” some drugs for them for a little bit—“Could you just hold them for me, very briefly?” Those gang members will then arrange for those boys to be viciously beaten up. Those boys will then be told that they have lost the drugs and now owe the gang members a whole load of money, and they will be put to work as county lines drug dealers from an incredibly young age. It is an absolutely horrific means of exploiting young boys, particularly vulnerable children, and we need to be as aware of it as we are of the way in which grooming gangs operate around girls.

I will move on to how this issue particularly affects women and girls. I will say one thing: I really, really wish that men—it is predominantly men—would stop using prostitutes. Could they just stop? The number of women being brought to the UK under false pretences and believing that they will do a different form of work, then being put to sex work against their will, kept in physically confined situations that they are not allowed to leave and having their passport taken away from them is really significant. The other thing that happens is that some women come here knowing that that might be an element of their work. If they then complain about it or want to stop, they are told that their children back home will be harmed if they do, so they are unable to go to the police when they are being systematically raped. I say to men: please, please stop using prostitutes.

I know that Cheshire police are taking all these issues very seriously and doing their best, but the best way to stop us having a market for criminal activity is for people to stop buying criminally traded goods, whether that is vapes, tobacco, drugs or women.

The final element of human trafficking I will talk about is in the care sector. Many people in the Chamber have heard me talk about this topic before, so I do not want to labour it, but the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority licensing scheme does not extend to the care sector, so agencies and sponsors are seizing opportunities to exploit other people for their own financial gain. A lot of people in my community receive care paid for either by the local authority, and therefore by the taxpayer ultimately, or with people’s life savings. They would be absolutely horrified if they realised the number of people doing that work who had been trafficked here in the first place.

Other hon. Members have mentioned the various organisations working in this area, one of which is Unseen, which talks about regularly speaking on its helpline to members of the care profession who have paid somewhere between £11,000 and £30,000 to get here, when they should not be paying anything other than their own travel expenses. Some 4% of victims have been threatened with either direct personal harm or harm to their family members. Actual, physical harm was reported in 2% of the cases that came to that helpline. Nearly half of victims described confinement or restricted movement.

The list of things that have gone on is genuinely, absolutely horrendous. I suggest that when the Fair Work Agency takes over the GLAA’s responsibilities, we ensure that licensing is brought into this sector or otherwise look at how the visa regime can be changed, so that people can transfer between employers, and how we can generally stamp out the level of exploitation in the care sector.

I thank everyone who has participated in this debate. I know there is a lot of strong feeling across the House that we can and should do a lot better for vulnerable people in this country.