Question to the Attorney General:

To ask the Attorney General, how many people have been charged with human trafficking offences in relation to small boat crossings in each of the last three years.

Human trafficking flagged prosecutions data, which includes offences committed under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and comparable offences committed prior to 2015, is published each quarter. The latest information was published on 17 July and can be found here. It is not possible to distil from this data whether any of these cases involved people who arrived in the UK on a small boat without conducting a manual review of cases which would incur a disproportionate cost.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) considers all cases referred to it by law enforcement. It has increased prosecutions for immigration related offences since the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 came into force, which introduced a new offence of illegal arrival and increased sentencing for illegal entry and related offences and facilitation offences contained in the Immigration Act 1971.

Organised crime groups are highly adaptable and are exploiting people for gain with no regard for their safety or our border controls. A multi-agency response is key to tackling this. The CPS plays an important part in the whole system response to organised immigration crime in the Border Security Command. The CPS has also increased engagement with overseas partners to maximise opportunities to collaborate on information and evidence gathering, to prosecute more swiftly.

Under the Modern Slavery Action Plan, the Home Office has commissioned research to better understand the links between organised immigration crime and modern slavery.