Slavery

(asked on 30th December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to page 7 of her Department's 2020 UK Annual Report on Modern Slavery, what progress has been made on establishing a robust estimate of the prevalence of modern slavery in the UK.


Answered by
Victoria Atkins Portrait
Victoria Atkins
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
This question was answered on 15th January 2021

The hidden nature of modern slavery makes producing an accurate measure of its scale difficult. In March 2020 the Office for National Statistics noted that there is no definitive source of data or suitable method available to accurately quantify the number of potential victims of modern slavery in the UK:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/modernslaveryintheuk/march2020

The Government is, however, committed to improving its understanding of the nature and scale of this complex crime. In July 2019, the Government announced a £10 million investment to create a new Policy and Evidence Centre for Modern Slavery and Human Rights to transform our understanding of modern slavery. The Home Office will continue working with the Centre and other partners to strengthen the evidence base underpinning our policy and operational response to modern slavery.

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