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Human Trafficking

It is a pleasure to take part in a debate under your chairmanship, Mr. Bercow. I think that this is the first time that I have done so. I do not know whether placing you in the Chair is an attempt by the powers that be to muzzle you, given the way that you have expressed opinions in the past. I certainly hope not, and knowing you as I do, I suspect that, other than at the times when you are in the Chair, when you will of course display the appropriate demeanour and act with appropriate neutrality, your passion for putting your view across will be undiminished. I look forward to that. I welcome the debate. I am pleased that we are here. I have two hats in a sense: I am speaking for the Liberal Democrats, but I am also a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Indeed, I think that it was I who first suggested that the Committee conduct an inquiry in this area. I am pleased that we have reached the stage at which we have had the Government response to the inquiry and a whole lot besides, with regard to the action plan, and that we are debating that. I put on the record my thanks to the Chairman of the Committee, the hon. Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), for his support in conducting the inquiry and the way in which the Committee, under his chairmanship, did a lot of work in gathering evidence from both written and oral submissions, both in this country and abroad. It is appropriate to pay tribute to the staff of the Committee, including the then Clerk and the then Committee specialist—who have moved on to other, possibly even greater things—for their efforts in producing what was a very difficult report to produce, because of the wide-ranging subject matter. I pay tribute to other members of the Committee for the work that they did. I pay particular tribute both to the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who cannot be here today but who applied a great deal of diligence and interest to the inquiry, and to Baroness Stern, who has always taken a huge interest in the position of victims in our society, whether in custody, which is her specialty, or in other areas. While I am paying tributes, I ought to say that, although the Minister will soon find out that I am not happy with the actions that the Government have taken so far, or the absence of action taken by the Government, no one can doubt his willingness to engage in an extremely pleasant and open way, unlike some Ministers and perhaps some Opposition spokespeople, in both the other Opposition party and my own. The Minister’s willingness to engage has enabled us to make more progress on understanding where the Government are coming from, even if we do not agree with them, than we otherwise would have done. I thank him for that. I shall talk in a moment about the speech made by the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen), but it is appropriate to pay tribute to him first for the efforts that he has made to raise the profile of this subject in Parliament outside the human rights report by setting up the all-party group on the trafficking of women and children and leading it so actively and with such obvious passion that there is a danger, when we walk through Portcullis House, of never reaching our destination because we are stopped by the hon. Gentleman to be told exactly how we can contribute further to the work of the group. Such enthusiasm is noted, valuable and appreciated, as is the work that the hon. Gentleman has done in other Adjournment debates and parliamentary questions, because he has applied to the issue assiduousness and tenacity and has developed the expertise that is required to deal with such a big and complex issue.