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Serious Organised Crime Agency

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) for giving me a minute or two on SOCA. The question in his excellent speech was the release of information, but my concern is that there is no information to release in many cases. In answer to a question that I tabled, the Minister said:"““The Home Secretary’s priorities for SOCA in its first year included that SOCA should devote a higher proportion of its resources and activity to intelligence work than the agencies that it replaced and that Class A drugs and organised immigration crime, in that order, should be its top priorities. Organised immigration crime covers both the organised facilitation of immigrants to the UK (people smuggling) and trafficking of people for criminal exploitation, for example prostitutes or forced labour (human trafficking).””—[Official Report, 1 October 2007; Vol. 463, c. 2359W.]" Its involvement in information gathering and sharing was included in the annual report 2006-07. In spite of that commitment, SOCA’s most recent report includes no mention of trafficking and no information about how many children are trafficked into the UK—dealing with that was one of SOCA’s original jobs. There are no statistics on human trafficking, and according to another parliamentary answer from the Minister, there is no intention to produce any more information. As for the number of trafficked victims found tending cannabis:"““Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) records do not hold information about the location in which an offence was committed.””—[Official Report, 7 February 2008; Vol. 471, c. 1372W.]" On the numbers of victims of internal human trafficking, the answer was:"““Data on trafficking victims are not yet recorded centrally.””—[Official Report, 10 June 2008; Vol. 477, c. 197W.]" In answer to the question how many children have been charged with cannabis cultivation, the response was:"““Charging data are not collected centrally””. —[Official Report, 17 June 2008; Vol. 477, c. 831W.]" It is not just a question of how to release the information, as my hon. Friend has rightly asked. Another problem is that SOCA does not have the information. Not only does it not have the information, but it has tried to bypass that fact by arguing that the UK Human Trafficking Centre in Sheffield is responsible for such matters. The Human Trafficking Centre does not have the information either, although £1.75 million will be spent this year trying to find it. My argument is simple. I believe that SOCA has only 12 staff—it is a tiny organisation. However, if it has more staff than that, why can it not obtain the information that my hon. Friend wants, or the information that I want on human trafficking?