Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent steps she has taken to expand access to independent child trafficking guardians to all local authorities in England and Wales.

The Government is committed to delivering the national rollout of the Independent Child Trafficking Guardians (ICTG) service. To date, a staggered approach to rollout has been adopted with robust built-in evaluations to ensure the ICTG service meets the needs of the vulnerable children it supports.

In May 2021, the ICTG service was further expanded to cover in total two thirds of all local authorities across England and Wales, focussing on the areas of highest need.

As part of this phase of the rollout, we are undertaking the targeted testing of recommendations made by the Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. An independent evaluation will be carried out to look at the added value of these changes and consider appropriate next steps.