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Human Trafficking

I beg to move, To leave out from ““House”” to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:"““condemns the trafficking of human beings as one of the most vile crimes to threaten our society; welcomes the Government's commitment to make the necessary legislative and procedural changes required to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings before the end of 2008; believes that ratification is an important milestone in the Government's concerted strategy to protect the victims of ""trafficking and bring to justice those who exploit them; notes that the UK Action Plan on Trafficking, published in March 2007 on the same day as the UK signed the Convention, comprehensively pulls together the work already under way across Government to tackle trafficking and creates a platform for future work; praises the work of the UK Human Trafficking Centre, established in March 2006 as the central point of expertise and operational co-ordination in tackling human trafficking; supports the valuable work done as part of nationwide police-led anti-trafficking operations, including Pentameter 1 and 2; and notes the £4.5 million of government funding provided over the last five years for victim protection under the Poppy scheme, which supports adult women trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation.””." I compliment the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) on the vast majority of what he said and, apart from the first couple of sentences, the constructive way in which he engaged with the subject—I thank him for that. I also thank all hon. Members who are present for the debate, particularly the significant number of parliamentarians who have had a huge input in taking the agenda forward. I thank not only my ministerial colleagues, and some members of my party who are in the Chamber—my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore), who is Chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane), my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs and many others—but, in particular, I also thank the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), who has taken a particular interest in labour exploitation, and the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen), who has done a fantastic job with the all-party group on trafficking of women and children and through all his other work to take the agenda forward. Of course, I also thank hon. Members from the Liberal Democrat Benches. Of course, there will be differences between the parties about some of the things that I shall say and about some of the Government's policy decisions. However, we can and should be proud of the way in which we have tried to lead the debate as a Government and as a country. Regardless of the party politics, some hon. Members present today have been at conferences where representatives of other European countries have come to talk to us about how we are tackling the problem and to try to learn from us as we try to learn from them. As well as thanking Members of the House, I want to thank the stakeholders across the county: Amnesty International, ECPAT—or End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography And the Trafficking of children for sexual purposes—Stop the Traffik and all the other non-governmental and voluntary organisations. They, too, deserve a huge degree of credit for the way in which the debate has been taken forward. Trafficking is one of the vilest forms of crime and one of the vilest harms that threaten our society. It is unbelievable that 200 years after the abolition of slavery by the House of Commons, we are yet again debating slavery in 2008. Members from all parties have said that our Government should take the matter forward. That is what the people out there would not only expect of us but demand from us.