The Government is committed to ending modern slavery and providing victims with the support they need to rebuild their lives.

Support and assistance for adult victims of modern slavery is provided via the government-funded Victim Care Contract, in England and Wales. This support enables victims leaving situations of exploitation to access specialist care, to begin to rebuild their lives. This includes accommodation, financial support, access to mental and physical health services, and signposting to legal sup-port. Confirmed victims receive a minimum of 90 days Victim Care Contract support; however, many are supported for longer than this.

Our new Recovery Needs Assessment process will improve support for confirmed victims by ensuring their ongoing recovery needs, arising from their modern slavery experiences, are identified and supported through the Victim Care Contract or other services. The Recovery Needs Assessment will inform an individual move-on plan with the aim of establishing longer-term stability by helping victims transition out of Victim Care Contract support and into a community where they can start to rebuild their lives. Where this is not yet possible, Victim Care Contract services will continue to meet the confirmed victim’s recovery needs.

The Recovery Needs Assessment guidance was published on Friday 27 September and assessments will start during the week commencing 30 September. We will keep the Recovery Needs Assessment process and guidance under review throughout its gradually phased implementation over the coming months.

If a confirmed victim of modern slavery does not qualify for asylum, humanitarian protection or other forms of leave to remain under the Immigration Rules, then they are considered for a grant of discretionary leave to remain on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the particular circumstances of each case. There are no plans to change this policy.

As part of the process of identifying the initial 100 places, towns have been chosen on the basis of a robust selection methodology. This took into account various qualitative and quantitative indicators. These included income deprivation, skills, productivity, EU exit exposure, economic shocks, investment opportunities, and policy alignment.

HM Treasury has announced that the Home Office will receive £750 million for investment in policing in 2020/21 to enable delivery of the year one officer uplift. HMT has also confirmed that the Home Office will receive an additional £45m of funding in 2019/20 to help forces start recruiting as soon as possible.

Up to 6,000 additional officers are to be recruited by the end of March 2021.

We are following the serious situation in Kashmir closely. Events in Kashmir have regional and international implications and we urge calm and caution from all.

We are in regular contact with the Government of India. We are also in regular contact with the Government of Pakistan. The PM has spoken with both PM Modi of India and PM Imran Khan of Pakistan. He stressed to both that HMG's position on Kashmir remains unchanged (it is a bilateral issue for India and Pakistan to resolve, taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people). He also underlined the importance of maintaining dialogue. In addition to this, the Foreign Secretary spoke with his Indian counterpart Dr Jaishankar on 7 August. He expressed concerns and called for calm. The continued use of detentions and restrictions on communications are worrying. It is important individual rights are fully respected and there should be constructive dialogue with affected communities.

In response to the Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act, on the 9 July the Home Office launched a public consultation to gather views on proposals to strengthen section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act. The proposals under consideration – including extending the reporting requirement to public sector organisations, requiring organisations to report on specific topics and introducing a new civil penalty regime – would require changes to primary legislation. Following the consultation, the Home Office will make any necessary legislative changes as soon as Parliamentary time allows.

The full Government response to the Independent Review of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 was published in July 2019 and is available via the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-response-to-the-independent-review-of-the-modern-slavery-act

The UK’s policy for confirmed victims of modern slavery is to consider on a case-by-case basis whether a grant of leave to remain is appropriate, taking into account the particular circumstances of each case.

The UK Government is committed to the eradication of all forms of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking globally by 2030, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7. The Home Office and Foreign Office work closely to combat modern slavery internationally and to engage governments in dialogue, including countries of origin for victims of modern slavery.

In addition to engagement, the UK has committed £200 million in UK aid to tackle modern slavery. This supports a range of interventions, such as the commitment of £5 million to a programme in Nigeria and £3 million to Vietnam through the Home Office Modern Slavery Fund to prevent modern slavery and build capacity to tackle it at source. HMG also agreed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Countering Human Trafficking with the Vietnamese government in 2018.

The UK Government is committed to the eradication of all forms of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking globally by 2030, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7. The Home Office and Foreign Office work closely to combat modern slavery internationally and to engage governments in dialogue, including countries of origin for victims of modern slavery.

In addition to engagement, the UK has committed £200 million in UK aid to tackle modern slavery. This supports a range of interventions, such as the commitment of £5 million to a programme in Nigeria and £3 million to Vietnam through the Home Office Modern Slavery Fund to prevent modern slavery and build capacity to tackle it at source. HMG also agreed a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Countering Human Trafficking with the Vietnamese government in 2018.

The British Government is committed to the eradication of all forms of modern slavery, forced labour and human trafficking globally by 2030, in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 8.7. We work to combat modern slavery internationally and to engage governments in dialogue, including countries of origin for victims of modern slavery.

The United Kingdom has committed £2 million to a programme in Albania through the Home Office Modern Slavery Fund to prevent modern slavery and build capacity to tackle it at source. The Government also agreed a Memorandum of Understanding on intensifying cooperation in the fight against trafficking in human beings with the Albanian Government in 2014. We work closely with the Albanian Government on this issue; our Ambassador last raised it with the Albanian Interior Minister on 29 August.

Prior to the transfer of National Referral Mechanism decision making responsibilities to the Home Office Single Competent Authority (SCA) in April 2019, publications were produced by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and can be accessed via the NCA website. https://nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/component/finder/search?q=national+referral+mechanism+&Search=

Responsibility for publishing the NRM statistics now sits with the Home Office, and the first report (Q2 2019) was published at the end of August. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/827508/national-referral-mechanism-statistics-quarter-2-2019-april-to-june.pdf

The publication does not distinguish the immigration status of confirmed victims but invites stakeholders to submit their interest into a review of how the publication of NRM statistics can be improved.

It is not possible to accurately provide data on the number of confirmed victims awaiting a decision on their immigration status currently due to the range of potential immigration outcomes following an NRM decision.

I am not going to take any lectures from anybody in the Labour party about how to run a party. Theirs is a party in which good, hard-working MPs are daily hounded out by antisemitic mobs. Let us be absolutely clear: if the hon. Gentleman is interested in democracy, I hope he has been listening to what I have been saying today. In an anti-democratic way, the Bill that will come before the House today would hand over this country’s right to decide how long to remain in the EU, and it would hand it over to the EU itself. That is what the Bill involves. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that is a good idea, let him submit it to the judgment of the British people in an election.

I have not had recent discussions with the Chinese Government on allegations of forced organ harvesting. However, the Prime Minister's Special Envoy on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad, set out the Government's position in Parliament on 25 July. Lord Ahmad said,

"I note the time and energy that the International Coalition to End Transplant Abuse in China has dedicated to this issue. Officials have reviewed the evidence thoroughly. While the evidence is not incontrovertible, we take these allegations seriously and have consulted the World Health Organization and international partners. The evidence provided disturbing details about the mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, and raised worrying questions about China's transplant system. We continue to monitor all available evidence."