Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many people have been charged under (a) section 1 and (b) section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 since those provisions came into force on 31 July 2015.

I am answering on behalf of the Secretary of State for Justice, as I am the minister that superintends the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who is responsible for bringing charges.

The CPS does not maintain a central record of the number of people who have been charged with offences brought by way of Section 1 or Section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015; or Section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants etc.) Act 2004; or Sections 57 and 58 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. (Sections 57, 58 and 59 were repealed and replaced by section 59A Sexual Offences Act 2003 on 13 April 2013) This information could only be obtained by examining CPS case files, which would incur disproportionate cost.

However, although it is not possible to identify the number of people charged with a particular offence, records are held showing the overall number of offences in which a prosecution commenced in the magistrates’ courts. The table below shows the number of offences, rather than defendants, charged by way of the human trafficking offences during each of the last three calendar years. A single defendant may be charged with more than one offence.

No offences have yet been recorded under section 2 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, which came into force on 31st July 2015.