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Anti-Slavery Day Bill

I am not familiar with the specific figure, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House has drawn our attention to that. I simply make the point, which I know the hon. Gentleman agrees with, that the figures are sometimes misunderstood because it is assumed that the problem is static, and of course it is not. Our understanding of the scale of the problem is improving steadily. Particularly helpful in that context has been the introduction of the national referral mechanism, to which the hon. Member for Ashford referred, which was established as part of the ratification of the Council of Europe convention on 1 April 2009. The national referral mechanism is a multi-agency framework that assists in identifying victims of trafficking and then providing support. It is supported by significant investment to provide front-line officers and responders with the skills to assess whether an individual should be referred into the framework. That work includes training staff to respond to individuals in an appropriate manner. The hon. Member for Totnes mentioned the desirability of improving awareness and training in this area across the various agencies. A serious point about the policy proposal put forward by the hon. Member for Ashford is that, although we would not want to rule out a police force within an agency on ideological or dogmatic grounds, we must acknowledge the practical question of what is the best framework for getting all the agencies to work in partnership on this issue. Is there a danger that a Border Agency police force would lead to other police forces and agencies de-prioritising this issue because they were working on the assumption that the agency police force was responsible? My response to this proposal is that, whatever arguments we have about the border, it is not the border itself that needs the extra policing; it is the investigation and enforcement. That is why our preferred approach is through the local immigration and crime teams. They could adopt what I describe as the Eliot Ness approach. Members will recall that Al Capone was captured by a tax investigator, not by a man with a machine gun. Similarly, immigration and police powers working together are mutually beneficial because, more often than not, human trafficking involves illegal immigration activity and other crimes. I am sure that this debate will be heightened in the next few weeks. There is a serious, almost tactical, decision to be taken on this, as well as a strategic one. Training is now mandatory for all UK Border Agency staff below assistant director level, and training modules for the police service have been inserted into mandatory mainstream training courses throughout the police. However, it is not enough simply to focus on human trafficking in the UK. Many victims are foreign nationals from the EU and beyond. The second strand therefore involves addressing the problem at source. The Home Office works closely with our colleagues in the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as well as with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, which is an international organisation. I have recently met officers in Nigeria, for example, and it is possible to see the end-to-end approach working as intelligence comes through from such countries. Those organisations have a number of initiatives to tackle trafficking at source, and the work has four components, of which awareness raising is one. We hear horrendous stories about young people who are understandably naive. Perhaps naive is not the right word, but they lack awareness of what is going on. The hon. Member for Totnes has recounted stories of youngsters believing that they are going to get a decent job and ending up in enslavement. The second component involves capacity building in the source and transit countries to deal with organised immigration crime. The third involves working with Governments and other organisations within the EU and beyond. The fourth involves taking action to address the factors that make poor people vulnerable to trafficking in the first place. The strategy in the Czech Republic is an example of that. DFID works in 150 countries, and plays a critical role in preventing trafficking at source, through work on combating poverty and social injustice and implementing long-term development programmes. For example, we are currently supporting a project run by the Salvation Army to combat child trafficking in Malawi. There are numerous projects like that in Africa. Similarly, the Crown Prosecution Service has undertaken programmes in a number of jurisdictions to improve the investigation and prosecution of offences. This has focused on the Caribbean, west Africa, China and Afghanistan, while we have also seconded Crown Prosecution Service staff to work in Sierra Leone and Ghana. Within the European Union, in order to strengthen the international response, we take a joint approach, and we are negotiating a revised framework decision on human trafficking. The UK has played a key role in preparing for the Schengen evaluation of trafficking and supporting the development of ideas proposed by the then Swedish presidency to improve the EU's external work to combat human trafficking. If one wants an example of why we were right not to join Schengen, this is a good one, in my opinion. Growing awareness and implementation of policy relating to the protection of the border and better sharing of data within EU countries is critical to this approach. The Swedish presidency recognised that, and a number of EU countries shifted their attitude, which is testament to the campaigning work going on in this country and elsewhere.