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Human Trafficking

I thank all Members who have participated in this excellent debate. It is obvious that there is total abhorrence of this evil crime across the House, and many voices have been raised. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has demonstrated not only by the sense of what he said, but by his obviously open, willing and committed attitude, how deeply the Government are committed to tackling this horrible crime. I will try to weave a response to Members' contributions into what I have to say, but I hope that they will forgive me if I do not name them all; as there have been 17 contributors so far, if I were to try to do so it would sound like ““Baird's guide to parliamentary constituencies””. The Government's approach to trafficking involves being as inclusive and as multi-agency across the board as it is possible to be. Not only do we have a joined-up approach at policy level—we are always open to constructive suggestions such as those put forward today—but, for instance, the inter-ministerial group has a stakeholder group from non-governmental organisations with which it frequently engages in very unvarnished ways. There is also a practical approach on the ground: we have collaborations such as POPPY project outreach workers working at the UK Human Trafficking Centre to give advice. We are as inclusive as possible, and after this debate I can only expect that that will get better. Having some responsibility for the Crown Prosecution Service, I am pleased that there have now been 70 successful convictions since the Sexual Offences Act 2003 brought specific legislation on trafficking into UK law. However, let me assure those voices of concern that have been raised that this does not reflect the full extent of prosecution against traffickers. On many occasions and for many reasons, traffickers are prosecuted for rape, kidnapping, sexual assaults and physical assaults, and I assure the hon. Members for Totnes (Mr. Steen) and for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) that large numbers of them are convicted. It is important to remember that those convictions do not show in the simple statistics on trafficking convictions, but they are a significant part of the weaponry we use. Sentences have been long; the courts also understand the serious nature of these offences and send out strong messages. Despite that, however, we need to go further. The CPS is in the forefront of Operation Pentameter. It now has specialists on trafficking in all its areas, and it has lawyers seconded to the trafficking centre. There is also national guidance. The hon. Member for Totnes made the point the most powerfully, although several other hon. Members mentioned it, that to prosecute successfully one needs evidence. In Pentameter 2, a specific piece of work is being done on victim attrition, but it is not simply offering support—we are obviously trying to do that. The reality of trafficking is that the levels of intimidation are sky high and the trauma is intense. It is a hugely difficult matter. Many people are simply unable to help, so we must additionally look to other ways of preventing this trade from flourishing. One of the Serious Organised Crime Agency's top four aims is tackling trafficking through prevention, disruption, asset recovery and prosecution. In addition, the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 has been introduced. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority has revoked 42 licences, and 36 applications have been refused. Those cases do not show up as prosecutions, but bad gangmasters have been put out of business. Concerns were raised by the hon. Member for Eastleigh and my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) about work restrictions and the perhaps unforeseen consequences that they can have. We are committed to working on that. As the Home Secretary said on Monday, we will ratify the Council of Europe's convention by the end of the year. Let me be clear that we are compliant with much of it now, but we need to make some changes to domestic legislation. This is not any kind of delay by, or deficit of, the UK, and to call it a shame or anything of the kind is bonkers. The hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) did so briefly, but then he rightly became more urging of consensus. It is only a pity that his urging of consensus did not reach the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr. Newmark). Some signatories have legal systems that mean that they allow ratification even before implementation—indeed, some systems demand ratification before implementation. Our system works the other way round. We cannot ratify a treaty until we have implemented it in our domestic law, so the process takes longer for us. May I reassure the hon. Member for Totnes, and my hon. Friends the Members for Erith and Thamesmead (John Austin) and for Hendon that the monitoring mechanism GRETA does not come into force until February 2009, and if we ratify this year, as we intend to do, we will not miss participation in that process? We will ratify as quickly as we can, but we will not stop there. Our existing action plan goes further than the convention requires us to go. Now that we have got this constant returning to the issue of ratification out of the way by giving that undertaking, I hope that we can all move on more consensually. On demand, let me reassure the hon. Member for Ashford, who led for the Opposition, that no one is muddling up prostitution and trafficking, but they are clearly integrally connected. I was glad to have the hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) on board on that point. I hope that he will speak to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) and put him right. I was glad of the support of my right hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane). We think the correct figure is that about 4,000 women are trafficked for sex at any one time, so we think that his numbers from the Daily Mirror are off. There is work to be done on reducing demand. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) has led a campaign on that. She put forward some of the reality that requires us to look honestly at whether we should follow the Swedish model of legislation and criminalise the purchase of sexual services across the board. We shall also look at tackling the advertising of any sexual services in the mass media—the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Atkinson) endorsed that—through stricter guidance at the very least, but if prosecution appears to be necessary, it will doubtless follow. We will also consider call-barring on phones that are obviously being used for brothels. There is a good deal that I cannot directly answer because of the time available. Essentially, we are modelling a proper system of victim referral and identification, as we must to implement the convention. The difficulty of identification is at its height in respect of children. Let me reassure everyone that we are working as hard and as well as we can on that. I reiterate the Government's commitment to bring to justice as many perpetrators of this heinous crime as possible, while at the same time ensuring that victims get protection and safety. So much more remains to be done, but—