The Government is committed to ensuring that genuine victims of modern slavery and human trafficking (MSHT) are identified promptly and provided with the support necessary to assist them in rebuilding their lives.

The rights of victims of MSHT in the UK are governed by both our domestic and international obligations, such as those protected under the Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (ECAT), Modern Slavery Act 2015 (MSA), Illegal Migration Act 2023 (IMA) and Nationality and Borders Act 2022 (NABA). Section 45 of the MSA 2015 introduced a statutory defence for victims of modern slavery to protect them from prosecution for crimes they have been compelled or forced to commit as a result of their exploitation.

The Home Office funds the Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract (MSVCC), valued at £379m over its lifespan, to provide temporary needs-based support to enable adult victims to escape modern slavery, connect with long-term support, and reintegrate into the community.

In addition to the statutory support provided to children by the local authorities, the Independent Child Trafficking Guardianship service, which provides advice and support for potentially trafficked children, irrespective of nationality, covers two-thirds of the local authorities across England and Wales.

The Government is committed to tackling modern slavery to ensure that victims are provided with the support they need to begin rebuilding their lives and that those responsible are prosecuted.

The Home Office continues to fund specialist support for adult victims of modern slavery in England and Wales through the £379 million Modern Slavery Victim Care Contract and for children, who receive support through local authority safeguarding structures, we are also continuing to work with Barnardo’s to provide additional and tailored support through the Independent Child Trafficking Guardian service.

Since 2016, in addition to core police funding, we have invested £17.8 million in the Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Unit, a specialist police unit which supports all police forces in England and Wales to improve their response to modern slavery.

In addition, between 2016 and March 2023, the Home Office spent over £40.4 million through the Modern Slavery Fund to combat modern slavery overseas and reduce the threat of human trafficking to the UK. We continue to work across operational partners and the sector to deliver on modern slavery.

Border Force does not hold the cost of running the UK’s border policy for each of the last 10 years in an easily accessible format.

However, I enclose the Home Office annual reports and accounts link below:

Home Office annual report and accounts, 2012 to 2013 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Home Office annual report and accounts: 2014 to 2015 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Home Office annual report and accounts: 2017 to 2018 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Home Office annual report and accounts: 2018 to 2019 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Home Office annual report and accounts: 2019 to 2020 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Home Office annual report and accounts: 2021 to 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Costs are subject to change depending on numbers being accommodated within the asylum system. Accommodation costs are considered to be commercially confidential, therefore the Home Office does not publish this information.

However, total expenditure on asylum is published in the Home Office Annual Report and Accounts, available at https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/ho-annual-reports-and-accounts.

Over 15,000 people were supported to come to the UK directly following the evacuation of Afghanistan, and in the nine months since Op Pitting, we have helped a further 4,000 people to safety in the UK, via neighbouring countries. Those who arrived in the UK were granted limited leave to enter which allows access to public funds and employment.

We are continuing the process of granting Indefinite Leave to Remain to everyone who arrived during the evacuation, and who is eligible. Biometric Residence Permits are produced automatically, usually within a few weeks of people being granted Indefinite Leave to Remain.

We have made arrangements to ensure prospective employers and landlords can contact the Home Office to confirm individuals’ right to take employment and rented accommodation prior to them receiving a Biometric Residence Permit.

The data on those who have received their Biometrics Residency Permits is internal management data and therefore not suitable for publication at this stage.

Over 15,000 people were supported to come to the UK directly following the evacuation of Afghanistan, with a further 3,000 having arrived since.

As we continue to grant people indefinite leave to remain in the UK, their BRPs are automatically issued, usually within a few weeks.

The police have taken significant steps to improve the response to modern slavery over the last few years and all police forces in England and Wales now have specialist resources to tackle modern slavery. These can include specialist-led triage processes to oversee investigations, specialist investigative units and specialist research and analytical capabilities.

The Home Office supported this activity by providing £13.6m funding from the Police Transformation Programme between 2016/17 and 2019/20 and a further £2m in 2020/21 to the new Modern Slavery and Organised Immigration Crime Programme. The latest annual report for 2019/20 for the programme can be found at: https://policingslavery.co.uk/media/2563/ms-annual-report-2020.pdf

Every death in custody is a tragedy, and we are committed to delivering meaningful and lasting change to prevent deaths in custody. Good progress has been made in addressing Dame Elish’s recommendations, with the majority of recommendations now delivered, although there is more to be done.

To prevent deaths in police custody in England and Wales, we have significantly restricted the use of police stations as places of safety, for those experiencing a mental health crisis. The National Police Chiefs' Council are driving progress on national training, including how officers identify health risks of detainees, and the Government is making significant investment in mental health. The Home Office have created an annual statistical publication showing data on police use of force, broken down by ethnicity.

In February 2020, the Government implemented reforms to provide the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) with a power to investigate matters on its own initiative, without the need for a referral from the police. Legislative reforms to the IOPC’s corporate structure and governance, implemented in January 2018, have helped to improve the timeliness of IOPC investigations.

To support families, we have made inquests more sympathetic to their needs, undertaken a review of the provision of legal aid for inquests, and improved the information available immediately after a death in custody.

The Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody continues to oversee and drive progress on this work. An official government update will be published in early 2021.

The research contained in the report highlights the enormous complexity of sex work and prostitution today, and we will carefully consider the implications from this new evidence for policy in the Home Office and across Government.

Our priority remains tackling the harm that can be associated with prostitution and sex work, and to target those who exploit vulnerable people. These priorities will be our starting point for considering the research.

A response was sent to the Hon. Member on 1 November.

Officials have provided an explanation to the hon. Member on this individual case.

I have written to the Hon. Member on this individual case.

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about the police standing on the side of decent citizens. When I hear distress calls from across the

country about people who are not getting the response that they require from the police, I refer everybody to the police and crime commissioner for that area, who is responsible for performance and priority in the police force in question. Happily, the right hon. Gentleman will know that 200 police officers have been allocated from the uplift to Merseyside police, as a target for it to recruit over the next 12 months or so, and there will be more to come when we settle years 2 and 3. Like him, I want to see more police officers patrolling in Birkenhead, particularly in Hamilton Square, which holds fond memories for me as a child.

Stop and search is a vital policing tool when used correctly and officers have the Government's full support to use these powers in a way that is fair, lawful and effective.

Under Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the police in England and Wales have the power to stop and search someone if they have reasonable grounds to suspect they are in possession of an offensive weapon, including a bladed article - such as a knife.

Under Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, the police in England and Wales have the power to put in place temporary “no-suspicion” stop and search zones – if they reasonably believe that incidents involving serious violence may take place in that locality during that time period. When this power is authorised, police can search anyone within that area without requiring reasonable grounds to search each person.

In March 2019, the Government announced that it would roll back additional controls on the use of Section 60 powers to make it easier for officers in seven forces, including Merseyside Police, to authorise this power – to help forces further target the recent increases in serious violence.

Whilst it is important for the police to have the right powers, they also need the resources to use them. This is why we are also supporting police with additional funding. On 13 March 2019 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a £100 million fund to tackle serious violence. £63.4 million of this funding has already been allocated to 18 police forces, including Merseyside Police which received £4.2 million, to support surge operational activity, such as increased patrols.

This money is already being put to good use. The BBC recently reported that Merseyside had recovered 14 knives in a single week following stop and searches.

An internal review was conducted on request 53533 and a response sent to the requester on 12 July. This found that the outcome of the original response (refusal under the cost limit) was correct. The two requests (53533 and 52979) asked for distinct information, hence the difference in responses: in one case the information could be provided within the cost limit, in the other it could not.

May I thank the right hon. Gentleman, as I said, for the work that he and his colleagues did on the review? It was an extraordinary piece of work and very thorough, and I know that he was pleased that we were able to accept the majority of its recommendations. We absolutely accept the point about the public sector, and he will know that the Prime Minister recently made an important announcement to confirm that Departments will make modern slavery statements to ensure that their supply chains are free from slavery. As for the further details, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman in due course.