Home Affairs Committee

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Let me start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for granting this time for a debate on the report from the Home Affairs Select Committee on human trafficking, the first report of the 2023-24 Session. Let me also thank and pay tribute to the courage and bravery of the survivors who shared their views and experiences with us as part of the inquiry, and express my gratitude to the Committee Clerks, staff and advisers who provided such excellent support.

This report puts paid to the idea that the UK is still a world leader in combating human trafficking. It is not. A preoccupation with small boat crossings and the Rwanda scheme has seen the Government divert their focus and resources away from combating human trafficking. The post of Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner was vacant for 18 months. The Home Office has not published its annual report on human trafficking for two years, and it has taken the Department two years to launch the new stakeholder groups to engage with anti-trafficking non-governmental organisations. The consequences of such de-prioritisation and delays are disastrous for this country’s response to human trafficking, undermining our ability to prevent exploitation, prosecute perpetrators and protect victims.

Let me begin with prevention. Let us be clear: human trafficking will continue to be attractive and extremely profitable to criminals unless more is done to tackle the demand for the criminality that it services. For example, there is currently too little deterrence for men who pay for sex, and that creates a market for trafficking for sexual exploitation. Indeed, the Government’s modern slavery strategy includes just two references to the need to “reduce demand”, and neither relates to sexual exploitation.

Law enforcement action against individuals who fuel the demand for sexual exploitation and who directly abuse victims has also been woeful. Section 53A of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which is headed “Paying for sexual services of a prostitute subjected to force etc.”, describes a strict liability offence. However, between 2013 and 2020, just three individuals were convicted under section 53A, and the maximum penalty applied was a fine of no more than £100. We think that the law should be strengthened and penalties increased to ensure comparability with other sexual and trafficking offences, and to increase the deterrent value. There should also be much greater use of section 53A by police forces and the Crown Prosecution Service.

The Committee found that websites advertising prostitution enable and profit from such exploitation without even minimal safeguards on those platforms. We were deeply concerned by the decision of the National Crime Agency and the Home Office to work with these websites, given that there is no evidence that that has led to a reduction in human trafficking on them. Websites are directly fuelling sex trafficking across the UK, and causing unimaginable harm to victims. We therefore call on the Government to make it an offence for any individual or company to enable or profit from the prostitution of another person, including the facilitation that takes place via websites.

Let me now turn to the subject of prosecution. The national referral system is the UK’s national framework for identifying and supporting victims of modern slavery, including human trafficking. The high number of referrals to the NRM, totalling 16,938 in 2022, highlights the scope of exploitation in the UK, but the CPS received only 286 referrals of human trafficking cases in 2022, which resulted in just 405 people being prosecuted. We were very concerned at the disparity in those figures, particularly as we heard during our inquiry that the number of referrals to the NRM is almost certainly not a true reflection of the number of victims.

In accordance with the College of Policing’s authorised professional practice for investigation, all suspected modern slavery offences are to be treated as serious crimes. Additionally, human trafficking and modern slavery have been identified by the National Crime Agency as a national priority threat, yet Dame Sara Thornton, the previous Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, told us that the low prosecution rates are due to the level of priority and resources, including expert teams, that police forces have applied.

To increase the number of prosecutions, there must be additional training for law enforcement. Police and crime commissioners should consider setting modern slavery and human trafficking as a priority in their police and crime plans, and there must be more use of evidence-led investigations. We would also tell law enforcement to follow the money, as there are clear links with money laundering and other criminal activity.

Crucially, we say that victim support must be at the centre of the investigation and prosecution process. The “victim navigator” programme is working to support this, with an independent support worker working with the police to act as a trusted bridge between investigators and victims. This scheme should be expanded and used in all cases.

Finally, to hold perpetrators of human trafficking accountable, the Modern Slavery Act 2015 must be applicable to all those who perpetrate this crime. That is why we recommend that the Act’s definition of human trafficking should be amended to remove the requirement for the exploitation to have involved travel, and to clarify that the consent of the victim, in relation to either the travel or the exploitation itself, is irrelevant.

As long as the crime of human trafficking is committed, we will need to support and protect victims, but we are not getting it right here either. Right now, the NRM decision-making process is extremely slow. The average waiting time for a conclusive grounds decision in 2022, across both competent authorities, was 543 days. This contributes to the stress, anxiety and depression of victims, who face an uncertain future. Furthermore, these delays have caused many victims to drop out of the process before it concludes, leaving them exposed to a risk of re-trafficking.

We heard how long waiting times can be particularly detrimental to British national victims, who may opt out, rather than wait in the NRM, and try to receive help and support elsewhere. The Home Office also failed to produce sufficient evidence to our inquiry to support its claims of widespread abuse of the national referral mechanism and of people trying to game the system in order to claim asylum. We recommend dealing with the backlog and reducing the number of days that NRM decisions take, and we ask the Government again to provide comprehensive data to support their claims of abuse of the NRM, if that data exists.

For some victims, the NRM is not the right support mechanism. In 2022, 41% of all referrals to the NRM were children. The Council of Europe’s expert group on human trafficking notes that, in 2019, the NRM comprised: UK nationals, 52%; Vietnamese nationals, 9%; Eritrean nationals, 6%; Albanian nationals, 6%; and Sudanese nationals, 5%. Several organisations told us that the number of children experiencing exploitation is likely to be much higher than the officially reported cases, yet the NRM is not appropriate for children. There is an urgent need for a joined-up approach to victim support that adequately addresses their needs.

We are also deeply concerned by the lack of action on missing victims of child trafficking. Measures such as devolving decision making to local authorities and providing independent child trafficking guardians to support victims are examples of schemes that can have a very positive effect but are not widely available. We are concerned that, more than two years into the pilots, we are still awaiting any evaluation. We also recommend introducing a statutory definition of child criminal exploitation. Finally, the report makes it clear that it is certainly not appropriate to accommodate children in hotels, particularly unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

I hope the report marks a turning point in the Government’s response to human trafficking. They can and must do much better. To that end, I welcome the decision by the House of Lords to appoint a special inquiry Committee on post-legislative scrutiny of the Modern Slavery Act, which will begin its work next year. I hope the recommendations and evidence base that we brought together in our report prove valuable to the Committee in its deliberations.

The Home Affairs Committee’s report offers the Government a clear road map for getting the UK’s response to human trafficking back on track. I am pleased that the Minister for Illegal Migration is on the Treasury Bench this afternoon, and I urge the Government to take heed of the recommendations.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, I concur with everything the Chair has just said. She raised the very unsatisfactory absence of an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner for more than 18 months. Will she elaborate on our recommendation that the Committee should have a pre-appointment hearing role, as we have for certain other positions? That might enable us to chase the Government rather more effectively on filling that role.

Secondly, the Chair said that the NRM is not appropriate for children and that the Government have been slow to roll out independent child trafficking guardians, let alone a definition of child criminal exploitation. Does she agree that this goes well beyond just trafficking? This is about child safeguarding, child welfare and children in the criminal justice system, and it really needs a joined-up approach involving several different Departments. Otherwise, these kids will end up being perpetrators rather than the victims that, in many cases, they are.

[Dame Diana Johnson]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who is an excellent deputy Chair of the Home Affairs Committee. His contributions are always very valuable. On children, I absolutely agree that we need a joined-up approach across Government.

On the hon. Gentleman’s first point, the Committee is disappointed that it has taken so long for an Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner to be appointed, but we recognise that we could play a useful role in having a pre-appointment hearing for that important role. We said in our recommendations that we would like the Government to consider that, and we look forward to seeing the new Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner at the end of January 2024, although that will be after her appointment. I hope the Government will take heed of our call for pre-appointment hearings in future.