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Human Trafficking

I did not think that it would be fair to ask the Minister all these questions today so I tabled them last night so that they would appear on the Order Paper. The Minister has had early warning and has been able to work on the matter since early this morning. Surely, one of the guiding principles should be to deter traffickers by making them increasingly uncomfortable if they continue to ply their trade in this country. Our aim must be to drive them out of this country and, with that in mind, I established the all-party group on the trafficking of women and children. We plan to set up similar cells in other parliaments in all EU countries so that Back-Bench MPs can put pressure on their Governments to shut down the entire trafficking network. That is our goal. In conjunction with ECPAT UK, which, as the Minister knows, is a coalition that represents Save the Children, UNICEF, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Children's Society, Anti-Slavery International and the Jubilee Campaign, we have made an application to a substantial human rights charitable trust in this country to provide 20 per cent. of the total funding to the Daphne III project, which is partly funded by the European Commission. I hope that my mild optimism about that will be rewarded because it would result in sufficient funds being made available over the next two years to support the establishment of the new venture and would provide an opportunity for Britain to lead the way in outlawing trafficking, or at least reducing it, on a European level—and my goodness we need that to happen. With ECPAT's help and expertise, parliamentarians throughout Europe can make a major contribution to tackling this growing problem. By October, we will hopefully have set up parliamentary groups in Poland, Romania, Germany, Italy and Holland. We will then do so in the rest of Europe. Perhaps the Minister would like to add his support to that initiative, which is currently being considered by the European Commission's justice, freedom and security directorate. I am sure that a nod from him would produce the necessary result—I hope that it will do, anyway.