Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Minister for Immigration of 21 June 2018 on EU Settlement Scheme, Official Report, column, 508, what steps he is taking to ensure that victims of trafficking and modern slavery are not excluded from the scheme as a result of criminal convictions received in (a) the UK and (b) other countries.

In line with the draft Withdrawal Agreement, conduct (including any criminal convictions) before the end of the implementation period will be assessed according to the current EU public policy and security tests for deportation, as set out in the EEA Regulations 2016.

The decision to deport under the EU public policy or security tests must be based exclusively on the personal conduct of the individual concerned, which must present a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests in society and must take into account proportionality considerations; including how long the person has resided in the UK, their age, state of health, family and economic circumstances, social and cultural integration, and the extent of their links with the country of origin.

Victims of trafficking and modern slavery who have committed crimes either in the UK or overseas are not exempt from this assessment. As with the operation of the statutory defence for victims of slavery forced to commit criminal acts by their traffickers (s45 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015), an assessment will be made on a case-by-case basis of the relationship between the crime committed and the circumstances of their trafficking or enslavement. This will be considered as part of the proportionality assessment set out above.