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Human Trafficking

To be honest, I do not know the whole answer to that question. If anybody is trafficked for any reason, it is obviously a crime, but I shall look into my hon. Friend's point. If I get some inspiration before the end of my speech, I shall come back to it. If the House will allow me, I shall make some further points. The Government are totally committed to eradicating the abhorrent crime of trafficking in all its forms. On Monday, the Home Secretary demonstrated that commitment by announcing the Government's intention to accelerate plans to ratify the Council of Europe convention against trafficking, and to review the Government's reservation to the UN convention on the rights of the child. I want to highlight that, because it is of huge significance to many organisations outside the House as well as to Members. We have worked hard and consulted widely since signing the Council of Europe convention. For example, we piloted a model of victim identification within Operation Pentameter 2, identified gaps in compliance and developed victim support models. There is much to do, but thanks to the progress that we have made, we now believe that we can make the necessary legislative and procedural changes to achieve ratification later this year. Ratification will be a significant milestone in the fight against this horrendous crime. To answer the hon. Member for Ashford, we need to make four or five pages of legislative changes if we are to ratify the convention. Many of them will involve secondary legislation. There are four or five issues to do with article 10 of the convention, four or five to do with article 14, and four or five to do with article 23, as well as others. I shall talk to him later and perhaps share some of that information with him. We are taking the ratification agenda forward, but many of the changes can be made through secondary legislation. I hope that if we need to proceed through primary legislation, he will help us to do so as quickly as possible.