Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
First Report - Human trafficking
Home Affairs Committee
HC 124
Published 8 December 2023
Recommendations
7
Accepted in Part
Home Office stakeholder engagement on modern slavery legislation remains unacceptably poor.
Recommendation
The Home Office’s approach to stakeholder engagement has been lackadaisical. It has taken the Home Office two years to launch a new formation of stakeholder groups (Modern Slavery Stakeholder Forums), during which time key legislation affecting victims of trafficking has …
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Government Response Summary
The government welcomed a new Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner at the end of 2023, addressing the vacancy. It also committed to continuing to work closely with stakeholders through Modern Slavery Engagement Forums.
Home Office
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65
Accepted in Part
Para 197
Recruit 200 NRM decision-makers by end of 2023 and reduce attrition to 15%.
Recommendation
The Home Office must recruit the promised 200 National Referral Mechanism decision-makers by the end of 2023 and focus on reducing the attrition rate to 15%. This should be done through increased resourcing, training and support for ongoing staff, as …
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Government Response Summary
The government commits to increasing the NRM workforce and boosting productivity, addressing the recruitment aspect, but does not specifically commit to the target of 200 staff by end of 2023, reducing attrition to 15%, or collecting data on reasons for staff leaving.
Home Office
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66
Accepted in Part
Para 198
Publish quarterly statistics on Competent Authority staff numbers, roles, and attrition rates.
Recommendation
The Home Office should include in its quarterly National Referral Mechanism statistics data on the number of Competent Authority staff, setting out how many are Reasonable Grounds/Conclusive Grounds decision makers, how many are new staff, and giving the attrition rate …
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Government Response Summary
The government states that quarterly NRM statistics already include data on the number of Competent Authority staff and that they will consider including additional data in future publications without compromising privacy.
Home Office
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Conclusions (3)
90
Conclusion
Accepted in Part
Para 270
We welcome the Home Office’s devolved decision-making pilot for children. However, we are concerned that more than two years into the pilot the Home Office has still not published an evaluation of its outcomes. Furthermore, we are concerned that the pilot excludes children within 100 days of their 18th birthday, …
Government Response Summary
The government stated an initial evaluation was conducted and committed to publishing future evaluations of the pilot. They expanded the pilot to ten additional sites but rejected expanding the scope to include age-disputed children or those within 100 days of their 18th birthday due to risks of incomplete cases.
91
Conclusion
Accepted in Part
Para 271
The Home office must publish an interim evaluation of the devolved decision-making pilot for children by January 2024, and thereafter a full evaluation of all phases of the Pilot by June 2024. If the outcomes are successful, all decision making for children must be transferred to local authorities within one …
Government Response Summary
The government committed to publishing evaluations of the devolved decision-making pilot to inform future policy, but did not specify deadlines or commit to transferring all decision-making to local authorities within a year as recommended, stating future expansion will be driven by various factors.
100
Conclusion
Accepted in Part
Para 300
Unaccompanied children living in contingency accommodation are particularly vulnerable to being trafficked, or re-trafficked. Between July 2021 and 19 October 2022, there were 391 episodes where children went missing from hotels. This is unacceptable.
Government Response Summary
The government agrees that local authority care is best and has closed six of seven hotels for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children by November 2023, with the last closing in January 2024, directly addressing the vulnerability in contingency accommodation.