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Child Slavery

Perhaps just once. The hon. Gentleman talked about the generation of £5 billion through the operation of slavery worldwide. That is a huge figure and we need to bear that in mind, because some very powerful interests will want to make sure that slavery continues. He also talked about Albania, China and the international issues there. The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) correctly reminded us about the victims. We need to ensure that we focus on the needs of those victims. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who is the chairman of the all-party group on human trafficking. He has done a huge amount of work on the matter and has followed in the footsteps of the former Member for Totnes, Sir Anthony Steen. Thousands of people—children, women and some men—are brought into the UK each year to work in the sex trade. In 2008-09, the Select Committee on Home Affairs claimed that more than 5,000 people were being trafficked. In 2003, the total economic and social cost of human trafficking for sexual exploitation was put at around £1 billion. Many more people, including hundreds of children, are smuggled into the country each year to be exploited as domestic servants, farm hands or drug cultivators. We know that that is a real problem in the Vietnamese community. Vietnam is the most prominent of the 47 countries of origin for trafficked children and there seems to be a particular focus on young boys between the age of 13 to 17, who act as gardeners and cultivate cannabis plants in various settings. In the remaining time, I shall discuss the EU directive on human trafficking. We have had lots of discussion this afternoon about why the Government have chosen not to sign up to the directive. The Government have said that they are already meeting the requirement set out in the directive. If that is right, which is in dispute, I ask the Minister to explain what would be lost by signing up to it. If we are doing everything anyway, what is the problem? Many hon. Members and organisations think that the Government are not complying with the directive. That was pointed out by many hon. Members in the debate on human trafficking held in Westminster Hall on 12 October and in the anti-slavery debate on the Floor of the House on 14 October. As the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole mentioned, a report was published by CARE—a Christian charity—on 7 February entitled, ““The EU Directive on Human Trafficking: Why the UK Government Should Opt-in.”” The report shows areas where the Government are not complying with the EU directive. They include support for child victims; widening the trafficking definition to forced begging; giving jurisdiction over UK citizens engaging in trafficking overseas; assistance to victims of trafficking in health care and accommodation; the investigation and prosecution of trafficking crime; protection of victims in criminal proceedings; and establishing an independent national rapporteur on trafficking. Such a role would be similar in nature to the one that Lord Carlile played in anti-terror policies. The Government oppose in particular the measure on guardianship for child victims of trafficking—an issue that is referred to in early-day motion 513 tabled by the hon. Member for Wellingborough and which has been raised by a number of charities. I would be grateful if the Minister shed some light on that subject. The Minister for Immigration told the House that the Government do not want to be bound by measures that ““are against our interests””. It would be interesting if the Minister responding to this debate explained what that means. To whose interests is the Minister for Immigration referring? The coalition agreement states that tackling human trafficking is a priority. I ask the Minister how much of a priority the matter is for the Government. I am concerned that many measures have been introduced that will weaken the protection of children from exploitation and the protection of vulnerable children, trafficked children and children who are held against their will. For example—the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole referred to this—there have been Government grant cuts to children's services in councils. We already know that there is a lack of awareness about trafficking and child slavery, and I am concerned that those cuts will have even further impact. There have also been cuts to specialist policing in the area of trafficking. Operation Golf has been abandoned, vetting and barring procedures have been weakened—as set out just yesterday in the Protection of Freedoms Bill—the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has been closed, and the UK Human Trafficking Centre and the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre have been dismantled. In addition, last year, ContactPoint was abandoned. On the issues of child slavery and trafficking, co-operation is the wisest policy for the Government to follow. The cost of not pursuing such a policy will be terrible for exploited children and other vulnerable people. Many hon. Members have discussed the need to secure convictions, but we need a comprehensive approach to do so. On 27 January, in response to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), justified not taking a decision on whether to opt into the EU Directive, and stated that"““we will make our decision in due course.””—[Official Report, 27 January 2011; Vol. 522, c. 440.]" That is particularly surprising bearing in mind the stance of the Liberal Democrat party on the issue and its long-standing view on the matter, which it has held for many years. We all want to do everything we can to stop child slavery and trafficking. I very much look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government plan to address the issues raised in this afternoon's debate.