Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the national referral mechanism.

The Government is focussed on improving National Referral Mechanism (NRM) decision-making timescales. We have seen an unprecedented increase in the volume of referrals in the NRM; a 625% rise between 2014 and 2022. In 2023, 17,004 potential victims of modern slavery were referred to the Home Office, the highest annual number since the NRM began in 2009. Despite this, since January 2023 the number of decisions outstanding has been coming down for the first time ever, showing that what we are doing is working.

The Government is committed to ensuring that genuine victims are identified and introduced legislation under the Nationality and Borders Act to ensure that there is a robust system which supports victims and reduces the opportunity for misuse.

The Home Office holds all policies and procedures under review to ensure they are effective in delivering the aims of the government. We continue to monitor the effectiveness of the NRM accordingly.