Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what estimate she has made of the number of victims of trafficking or slavery who have been subject to immigration detention in each year since 2010.

The Home Office record the number of all individuals referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and this information is published quarterly and can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-referral-mechanism-statistics-quarter-2-2019-april-to-june

This information does not distinguish between those detained under immigration powers and those living in the community. The reason for this is two-fold, firstly because the NRM referral is not an immigration route by which individuals should regularise their stay in the United Kingdom and secondly, because a person’s status in immigration detention is not permanent and can change.

The use of immigration detention in all cases is subject to regular reviews and consequently, a change in circumstance may result in a different consideration. It is quite possible that an immigration detainee is referred to the National Referral Mechanism during a detention period and is released into the community at any point during that process.