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Human Trafficking

The right hon. Gentleman may be right. We will see over time whether the success of the Dutch authorities in combating trafficking leads to a reduction in demand. However, there are decent and sensible arguments on both sides of the debate, and I know that the Government are considering them. Another aspect of the matter that I hope the Minister will deal with in his remarks, and which other hon. Members have brought up, is the extraordinary paucity and inadequacy of the statistics. Many questions have been asked and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes made the point that he had helpfully put some questions in writing as long ago as last night, to allow the Minister to consider them. To provide an example of a question that has received an answer, I asked last month what estimate the Home Office had made"““of the number of men and boys trafficked into the United Kingdom for suspected involvement in the sex industry””." The Minister replied:"““To date there has been no estimate made of the number of men and boys trafficked into the UK for the purposes of sexual exploitation.””—[Official Report, 2 July 2008; Vol. 478, c. 908W.]" I do not expect completely accurate figures, because obviously the area is surrounded by criminality, but I find it slightly extraordinary that the Government cannot even give an estimate of that very important subset of trafficked people. That shows the wider problem—that until we have more accurate information, it will be difficult to get more adequate policy in this context. Another point that others have touched on, which it is important for the Government to consider, is that in the wake of Pentameter, and now Pentameter 2, we have reached the point at which anti-trafficking operations should be a permanent part of policing, and not a series of discrete operations. Detective Chief Superintendent Kinsella of the UK Human Trafficking Centre told the Select Committee on Home Affairs that"““part of our role at the UK Human Trafficking Centre is actually to invent this as core business across the Police Service””." The Minister will also be aware of the comments of Chief Superintendent Phillipson of Cambridgeshire police who said publicly a few months ago:"““There are no Home Office targets for this kind of police work””." He continued:"““This is rape and sexual abuse, happening on a daily basis, but it is unreported crime. I won't achieve any reduction in crime statistics by closing brothels...But, quite frankly, I don't care. As far as I'm concerned this is what police work is about and I know that it's the right thing to do.””" Everyone involved in the debate this morning will agree with the chief superintendent and will, I hope, press the Minister to move the issue up the list of police priorities. The Minister will be aware of other evidence to the Select Committee, from Chief Constable Maxwell, of the UK Human Trafficking Centre, who said that in some countries further away from Europe there were problems with co-operation and the sharing of information and, in the most serious cases, corruption and infiltration by criminal gangs in the national authorities responsible for dealing with trafficking. I hope that the Minister can impress on his Foreign Office colleagues that a willingness to fight and disrupt trafficking must be impressed on countries as a priority as part of our foreign policy. The Foreign Office and, indeed, other Departments will deal with the relevant Governments on the negotiation of treaties, business deals and intelligence sharing, and I hope that the British Government are now making it clear across the globe that the fight against trafficking is a serious priority for them. We have inevitably heard a lot this morning about the signature and ratification of the Council of Europe convention on trafficking. The Minister is very aware of its history. The Conservatives called on the Government to sign the convention in January last year. They did so a few months later, which we welcomed. At the beginning of this year, since there had been a fairly deafening silence about ratification, we called on the Government to ratify it. The last public statement that we had from them was that it would be ratified by the end of the year. I hope that at the very least the Minister can repeat that assurance this morning and if possible agree that the date can be brought forward. I am conscious that the Minister made the point that there are difficulties. In a debate in Opposition time on 16 January he told the House that the Government"““need to make four or five pages of legislative changes if we are to ratify the convention.””—[Official Report, 16 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 1002.]" Obviously, subject to caveats about looking at the details, we would want to support that legislation and get it through as fast as possible. Can the Minister tell us today whether secondary legislation can be used, or whether primary legislation will be required? If primary legislation is needed, how and when will it be passed? For instance, the Department is drafting an enormous new immigration Bill for inclusion in the Queen's Speech, which we shall not get until December. Clearly it will be extremely lengthy and will include many controversial elements. I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance that the particular narrow legislation that is needed for the ratification of the convention will not be wrapped up in a larger and more controversial Bill. Inevitably that will delay ratification. The Minister will be aware that, quite apart from the very important legislative aspects of the matter, we have proposed a number of practical measures that would make a real difference to this country's performance in combating trafficking. We have for some time proposed the establishment of an integrated border police force, and I am sure that the Minister welcomed the details of the Stevens report that we issued last week. We said that there should be separate interviews at all airports for women and children travelling alone with an adult who is not a parent, guardian or husband, to identify potential victims. We suggest that immigration officials should check the date on the return ticket of the adult accompanying minors, to look for discrepancies, and we have said that there should be much better co-ordination between Government Departments than has been happening until now. We also think that each police force and local authority should have a strategy for dealing with suspected victims of trafficking. There are many issues for the Minister to address in the time remaining, not the least of which is that one of the great things that Pentameter revealed is the sheer scale of the trafficking problem and the slightly half-hearted nature of the response so far. We need a permanent police effort; we should already have ratified the convention; and Ministers must explain why, when many thousands of trafficked women live in fear in this country, there are safe places for only about 70. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will address those issues.