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Lisbon Treaty (No.1)

Article 69B of the Lisbon treaty defines trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation of women and children as a"““particularly serious crime with a cross-border dimension””." As such, measures can be adopted to establish minimum rules on criminal offences and sanctions. Those measures would of course be subject to the UK opt-in and the emergency brake, but in my view they would help us to ensure that the seriousness with which we address human trafficking in this country is shared across the whole of the EU. This is a good example, I am afraid, of a crime that would not be as well addressed were the hon. Gentleman's view that we would be better off out of Europe to be the case. There is no way that we can tackle cross-border crime such as human trafficking by reverting to our borders and believing that we can address it most effectively in the domestic environment.