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Human Trafficking

Like others, I pay tribute to the consistent work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) to bring this subject to the forefront of debate. I pay tribute to him not least because, as he rightly said, the House now debates this subject regularly, and we can use these debates to push the Government in the direction that all of us, including the Minister, want them to go. There is clearly no division between Members on either side of the Chamber when it comes to condemning the trafficking of women and children, sexual and labour exploitation and the range of criminal activities associated with those vile crimes. We should also pay tribute to the work of those involved in Pentameter 2 and to those police forces outside the framework of Pentameter 2 that conduct successful operations against trafficking. As I have said, debates such as this are useful in encouraging the Government further in the direction in which I know the Minister wants to travel. We have had an interesting and powerful debate about trafficking in relation to prostitution, which is a significant part of the total debate, but not all of it. Even in the past hour we have heard powerful arguments on both sides. The hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) pointed out the success of the Swedish approach of criminalising the purchase of sex, but we have also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) that the Dutch are quite successful in combating trafficking—more successful than we are—but that they have much more liberal laws on prostitution. Clearly the Government need to gather more evidence before coming down on one side or other of the debate. A particularly powerful point was made by the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) when he talked about the illegitimacy of certain types of behaviour—