Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what steps he has taken to improve the process of securing a conviction under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

The Prime Minister has convened a taskforce to coordinate the response across Government to this complex crime.

Following this, the Government has provided £8.5m of additional funding to the police in England and Wales to help improve the front line response to tackling modern slavery

Aligned to this activity, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has delivered mandatory accredited training for all prosecutors who work on modern slavery cases and have appointed a Chief Crown Prosecutor lead for modern slavery work across the CPS. CPS training has a strong focus on the provision of early investigative advice to police forces so that charges may be made under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Through the Serious Violence Strategy we have provided £3.6 million over the next two years to establish a new National County Lines Co-ordination Centre. The NCLCC was launched on 21 September 2018.

The NCLCC will help bring the law enforcement effort together as the links behind county lines are complicated and the threat crosses police force boundaries. The NCLCC will support operational policing as well as providing a central point at which intelligence and information is shared and the links with criminal exploitation and illegal drugs markets are identified.