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Human Trafficking

What the hon. Gentleman does not understand is that I am not St. George and there are a lot of dragons, but I thank him for his intervention. By October, we will be setting up these parliamentary groups and we hope that the Minister thinks that they are complementary to the successful initiatives he is taking forward under the action plan. I hope that parliamentary groups in this country and the rest of Europe will be able to work with him and his teams of Ministers. Once we sort out Europe, we will deal with the far east, but at the moment, we are trying to get a ring around Europe, so it becomes more difficult to traffic in and around Europe. Over the past two years, our all-party parliamentary group on the trafficking of women and children has tabled more than 150 questions—even though the Minister has been unable to answer a number of them—initiated debates, and generally put pressure on the Government here to raise the profile of what I call new slavery, both in the Commons and the Lords. I believe that the group even helped to get the former Prime Minister to sign the Council of Europe convention—he was somewhat reluctant to do so until a number of questions were asked by hon. Members from all parties. Although we are still waiting for ratification, as the Minister knows, I would like to put on record the immense amount of help I have received from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), Baroness Elizabeth Butler- Sloss, my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara) and the other officers of the group. Human beings are particularly vulnerable to trafficking if they are poor and believe that a new life awaits them round the corner that can provide them with the material prosperity they are lacking. It is more difficult to unearth trafficked women if prostitution is driven underground, as it has been in Sweden where prostitution is illegal.