Dame Karen Bradley
MP for Staffordshire Moorlands · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Where is the money for victims? A victim-centred approach to violence against women and girls is essential. The Government have already said that £1 billion needs to be spent on tackling violence against women and girls during the life of the strategy, but the Red Book states: “the government is prioritising £55 million of funding over tw…”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist). I join my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) in paying tribute to Sue Holt. I was in Strasbourg with her only a few weeks ago when she was taken ill. It was a great shock to all of us to learn what had happened to her.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let officials and councillors spend their time and effort on delivering services and let the mayors have the strategic overview. That would be a much better approach.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They will find really interesting insights on the need to prioritise upskilling UK workers to take job vacancies, not just looking overseas to fill those roles. The Committee is also doing to a piece of work on the impact of serious and organised crime on local neighbourhoods. My right hon.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As the Member of Parliament for Alton Towers and other great local attractions, including the Peak Wildlife Park, I know how much they welcomed the reduction in VAT over the summer and how much they want to see that made permanent. There was also nothing for farmers in the Budget.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Moving on to issues that affect my constituency, I welcome the £100 for A to D council tax payers. We have a disproportionately high number of properties in bands A to D in Staffordshire Moorlands, so more people will be affected by that than in some other constituencies.”
House of Commons29 October 2026Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
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“Will the Minister provide any information about the work done by the Home Office from the point that it found out that the away fans may be banned to when the decision was taken—or was the work that could be done to enable the match to go ahead with the away fans there done only after the decision had been taken?”
House of Commons24 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I add my support for my hon. Friend’s opposition to compulsory reorganisation, which local authorities simply do not want? The people of Staffordshire Moorlands do not want to be in a greater Stoke-on-Trent; they want to have their own say.”
House of Commons24 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Does the Minister consider that China represents a current threat to this country? Will he also expand on the work his officials are doing with the Members and Members’ Staff Services Team to remove potential security weaknesses, not just from this building but from MPs’ constituency offices and our homes?”
House of Commons18 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I very much look forward to the new violence against women and girls strategy. Can the Minister give us a bit more of a clue as to when we might see it? Will it include a single definition of violence against women and girls that is applied consistently across law enforcement and the Department?”
House of Commons17 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am sure that my Committee will want to look closely at the very significant number of announcements that the Home Secretary has made today. She referred on a number of occasions to asylum seekers contributing when they are given support. Has she given any consideration to setting up a deferred payment scheme, much akin to the student loan scheme, so that when people are granted asylum and are in work, they can start to pay back the generosity that they have received?”
House of Commons17 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and associate myself with the tributes to the emergency services and the train crew. Our thoughts are with the victims. When we have more information, I am sure that my Home Affairs Committee will want to consider what happened and learn lessons from it. I draw the Home Secretary’s attention to our inquiry on new forms of radicalisation. If things come out of the investigation that are relevant to my Committee’s inquiry, I ask that we ensure that we learn from them, and ensure that they are included in the inquiry as soon as possible.”
House of Commons3 November 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and for advance sight of it. While I am very supportive of the work that is being done to increase security at Jewish synagogues and other venues, the answer cannot be constantly more security for the Jewish community. The Jewish community need to be able to live their lives fully, as the Home Secretary said, so what steps is she taking to address the extremist ideology of the perpetrator? It is present online, in schools and in mosques; it is addling brains and making people do utterly horrendous things, such as those we saw last week.”
House of Commons13 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“There is a real threat at the moment to public trust in the criminal justice system following the collapse of this trial. Will the Minister make a commitment that he, ministerial colleagues and other advisers will co-operate fully with any scrutiny work done by my Committee or other Committees of the House?”
House of Commons13 October 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome members of the new Government Front Bench team to their places. The previous ministerial team had been clear that they wanted to stop the use of large sites to house asylum seekers, but there has been some indication that that position may have changed. Will the Home Secretary or the Minister clarify the position, and confirm that if they are changing that position, they will learn the lessons of what went wrong previously?”
House of Commons15 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The Minister made the point that the charges brought were under the old legislation, the Official Secrets Act, which has now been superseded. Has he made an assessment of whether the charges would have proceeded had the new offences been in place at the time the charges were brought? Will he be working with ministerial colleagues, law enforcement and others to look at whether new offences are needed in this case and in others?”
House of Commons15 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the Leader of the House to his place and pay tribute to his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell)—I have to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) that she supports exactly the right football team. People in Staffordshire Moorlands are very concerned that they should have their say about what happens in devolution plans. I am sure the Leader of the House will share my astonishment that the Reform-led Staffordshire county council has put forward a proposal for an east Staffordshire unitary authority, which would see not just Staffordshire Moorlands, but Burton, Uttoxeter, Tamworth and Lichfield drawn into a greater Stoke-on-Trent. Can the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the importance of local people having their own say on what happens in their local area?”
House of Commons11 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The burden of policing these protests is falling on certain forces more than others. That was also the case during the disorder last summer. Can the Minister give some reassurance that the Home Office is providing the support that is needed to those forces to ensure that they can manage the protests and so that their doing so does not distract from day-to-day policing?”
House of Commons8 September 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“May I associate myself and my Committee with your words earlier, Mr Speaker, regarding the 20th anniversary that we are marking today? Live facial recognition technology is an effective tool in community and neighbourhood policing. We know that is being used effectively by the Metropolitan police, but other police forces are nervous because they do not believe that the statutory underpinning is in place. Can the Home Secretary provide some reassurance about what the Government will do to make sure this technology can be used effectively?”
House of Commons7 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“People across the Staffordshire Moorlands are extremely concerned by the number of applications granted for solar farms and battery storage facilities. Will the Prime Minister give them some reassurance that he will change the law and that we will see good agricultural land saved for producing food, as it rightly should be?”
House of Commons2 July 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That may be a shock to some in this Chamber, because there is such awareness of the issue in Australia and New Zealand but we simply do not know about it here.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“In this particular case, a man who was convicted of raping a relative who was a child still has parental responsibility for his own child. That cannot be acceptable. Again, this feels like a piece of legislation where, at some point, we just failed to address this one issue. I hope, therefore, that this can be seen as a defect in the legislation that we all agree should be corrected. New clause 12 is a relatively simple amendment to the Modern Slavery Act 2015, but it reflects a phenomenon that we simply did not know about when we introduced the Act 10 years ago. As the Minister on the Bill, I remember going through many definitions of what constituted trafficking and exploitation, but, at the time, the phenomenon of orphanage trafficking was simply not known.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It concerns the removal of parental responsibility for individuals convicted of sexual offences against children. When I have talked about this to colleagues and asked them to consider supporting the new clause, they have been utterly amazed that anybody convicted of a sexual offence against a child may be allowed to have parental responsibility for their own child. That responsibility is stopped only if the offence is committed against their own child. That cannot be right. How can it be that a convicted sex offender—somebody who has been convicted of a sexual offence against a child—is allowed to make parental decisions about their own children? My hon. Friend’s constituent has talked about this—I believe that they are known as “Bethan” in this situation—and has been a real champion on this issue.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Although I understand that we will be pushed to Division this evening, I do hope that the Minister can say something about the Government introducing something similar—perhaps in the other place—so that we can make sure that this inappropriate content is illegal and therefore not available to be seen by children. Let me turn now to the new clauses in my name. I wish to start with new clause 123, because my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), who has been such a champion of this legislation, has to go to a Delegated Legislation Committee at 2.30 pm. I also wish him a very happy birthday. He is choosing to spend his birthday in this Chamber and attending a DL Committee—what a hero! Again, I think that this new clause will have cross-party support.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It also means that there is protection for children who may be looking at this pornography—we do not want them to look at it, but we are realists and recognise that this happens—and that it does not normalise what is a really dangerous act, which should not be promoted in any way. I know from experience that social media companies will remove content if it is illegal. They will not remove it if it is not. Therefore this simple change would mean that the depiction of non-fatal strangulation would become illegal content and social media companies would therefore be forced to act. I hope that this is something that can be supported across the House.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Let me turn now to new clause 121 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport. I was almost disappointed not to be able to table this new clause myself, because it fits with the work that I have done previously on these issues. I was Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport when the Digital Economy Act 2017 introduced age verification for pornography. Again, new clause 121 is a simple piece of legislation, which would make non-fatal strangulation a criminal act if in pornography. This does not impact on what people may wish to do in their private lives, but it does mean that those images would not then be available to be seen in pornographic films.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“As so often happens, a private Member’s Bill requires a statutory instrument to commence it, and that statutory instrument has not yet been laid in this House. I am sure the Minister is well aware of that and is seeking to do so. This new clause would allow the Act to commence now, rather than requiring that statutory instrument, thereby saving her a little bit of time. I hope, therefore, that she might look favourably on it. As I say, this was an Act that was supported across the House. There was no Division on it; it was very much something that we all wanted to see, so I hope that the Government accept the new clause and that the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells can follow on in the footsteps of his predecessor in making sure that this Act of Parliament becomes live and real for the people who need it.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I rise to speak to new clauses 12 and 123 in my name, new clause 43 in the name of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and new clause 121 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). New clause 43 seeks to commence the Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023, which was taken through the House as a private Member’s Bill by Greg Clark, the predecessor of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells. Greg did great work on this Bill. I was one of its supporters and a member of the Bill Committee. I spoke on Second Reading, Third Reading and in Committee. It is a simple Act, which had cross-party support—it was not in any way a controversial piece of legislation. It corrected an oversight in the law that had been missed out in a previous piece of legislation.”
House of Commons18 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and for early sight of it, and I am pleased that Baroness Casey has agreed to appear before the Committee tomorrow to set out the contents of her report more clearly. However, I am concerned about the potential for inquiries intended to get to the truth to prejudice criminal trials. How does the Home Secretary envisage the two elements running alongside each other—an inquiry and criminal prosecutions?”
House of Commons16 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Further to the question from the hon. Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish), the Home Affairs Committee has written to the Metropolitan police asking for details of any concerns it may have about the policing of this site and any particular disorder that might occur around it. I once again put it to the Minister that he must take account of these concerns. There could be very serious and significant concerns for policing in the capital.”
House of Commons9 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I just want to make sure that all five Members from north Staffordshire make their voice known on the record. I support him wholeheartedly in his speech.”
House of Commons4 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Can I draw the Home Secretary’s attention to the amendment I have tabled to the Crime and Policing Bill, which would extend the definition of exploitation in the Modern Slavery Act to include orphanage trafficking? It is a horrific crime that affects about 5 million children across the world, and it is something we need to recognise in our legislation.”
House of Commons2 June 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I am so grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I get the sense that he is perhaps needing to go long, and that might be why he is taking so many interventions—I am happy to assist him in that process. I want to give him an opportunity. I know him well enough and know how much he values this place, but I have been slightly concerned by his comments throughout that he is keen to get on with it. Would he like to put on the record that he is first and foremost a parliamentarian and that being in this place is the bit of the job that he values most?”
House of Commons14 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I thank the Minister for his statement. No one in the House should be in any doubt about the threat that Iran poses to us and our national security. How confident is he that its designation in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme will be effective? Is he looking to go further?”
House of Commons6 May 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have heard reports that the Staffordshire bull terrier may not be from Staffordshire because it is from Wednesbury. Can we confirm that Wednesbury has always been in the historical county of Staffordshire?”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The first is a very obvious one: a big family that lives in Staffordshire Moorlands, the Talbots—including the Earl of Shrewsbury—had this very nice house at Alton Towers, and they had a house architect called Augustus Pugin, who designed and created many buildings in that area that are still standing today, including schools and the marvellous St Giles church in Cheadle. Anyone who visits them can see that they are the forerunners for what we see in Central Lobby and across Parliament. Perhaps slightly lesser known is that Richard Norman Shaw—we know that name—is an architect who also operated in Staffordshire Moorlands. He was the architect of the All Saints church, Spout Hall on St Edward Street and, as we all know, Norman Shaw North and Norman Shaw South.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Furniss. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) on securing this important debate in the week of Staffordshire Day. As a proud resident of Arnold Bennett’s Axe and the representative of the head of the River Trent, which gives my right hon. Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge (Sir Gavin Williamson) and others such wonderful beer, it is an honour to take part in the debate. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who I will call my hon. Friend, talk about the contribution of the Minton tiles to Parliament, but I want to mention two other contributions that Staffordshire Moorlands has made to this Parliament.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We have so much to offer, and I want everyone to come and visit, not just to go on our rollercoasters, but to see the fantastic industrial heritage and the cultural impact that Staffordshire Moorlands has had. Happy Staffordshire Day.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“That is why I was really pleased last year to run a year of reasons to visit Staffordshire Moorlands—not just Alton Towers, the biggest tourist attraction outside London, or the Peak Wildlife Park, with our fantastic polar bear residents, but the many artists, writers, food producers and others who contribute so much to our fantastic culture. That is why on 1 June I will be starting a year of the Moorlands village. I will not be doing 52 reasons; I will be focusing on a village and a parish every week. This week alone, I visited the Scrumbles cake shop up in Brown Edge, and then went up to one of our nature reserves. I went to see St Luke’s church in Endon, which has an incredible Burne-Jones stained glass window—a source of light of a kind that would not be seen elsewhere.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Friend the Member for Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge said, three minutes is simply not enough time to talk about the whole of the cultural impact that Staffordshire Moorlands and Staffordshire have had in the United Kingdom. Culture is so important. I was a big advocate for Stoke-on-Trent when it was running to be the capital of culture, and it was a great disappointment to me that it was not chosen. I had to recuse myself from the decision. I was then the Minister who would have taken the decision, so I had to step aside and allow my deputy to take it. I hope we can come together and build something more around culture. The cultural heritage and the feeling of place and belonging are incredibly important to us.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“Hear, hear—my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have contributed not just to this Parliament but to Parliaments across the world. Staffordshire Moorlands also contributed to much of our décor. The arts and crafts movement started at Leek college. William Morris lived and studied in Leek, and came up with many of his original designs there. We have the canals, because James Brindley, the creator and architect of the canals, was a resident of Leek, and it was the canals that allowed our pottery to get to market. If pots are put on the back of a horse and cart, quite a lot of them break, but the canals allow them to be transported to market. The very fine quality pottery that Staffordshire is famous for was possible only because of the canals that James Brindley created. As my right hon.”
House of Commons29 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I agree with the Minister that policy must be victim-centred and that we must put victims at the heart of everything we do. Could she provide more information on when we will know about the remaining four locations? What will she do to ensure that the councils that are reluctant to be part of this work are compelled to do so?”
House of Commons28 April 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“The ambition to halve the prevalence of violence against women and girls is a laudable one, but could the Home Secretary give the House some more information? What number is she taking as a starting point to be halved? When will she be able to provide more information to the House and to my Select Committee?”
House of Commons31 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I congratulate the hon. Gentleman—my almost neighbour—on securing the debate. I apologise, as I cannot contribute fully to this debate as I have to go and prepare for the next debate, but I want to join him in his tributes to Michael. I have just seen Michael in Portcullis House, so I know that he is in the building, and I am sure that he will be in the Gallery at some point soon. He has been an absolute stalwart. As vice-chair of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly and previously its co-chair, I know just how much work Michael does to promote UK-Irish relations. We will miss him very much.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We need to ensure that it has the support and the thrust behind it with the leadership that I know the Minister can give it. I urge her to ensure that the whole of Government do the same.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They know what we have done in the past and they desperately want us to do it again. That means working in multilateral organisations such as the United Nations. In particular, we need to ensure that sustainable development goal 8.7 is enacted around the world. Will the Minister make this issue one of those priorities? I know the Government have their missions, and I am sure that I could squeeze it into safer streets or something like that. I could find a way to shoehorn this in, but without that support and leadership from the very top, this matter will not get the urgency it needs. It is the biggest human rights abuse globally. It is happening everywhere, including in the UK. Let us be clear: the highest number of victims in the NRM are UK nationals; it is not a migration crime.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I welcome the extra caseworkers, but 831 days on average for a decision is not good enough —she and I both know that. I urge her to do whatever she can, and I will support her every step of the way to make it clear that the national referral mechanism needs to make those decisions more quickly. We heard great evidence about this on Tuesday in the Select Committee. The UK has a duty to put victims front and centre of everything we do in response to this crime. If we do not put the victim at the heart of our policy response and everything we do, we will simply fail to address this issue. But we also need to lead the global effort. We did lead it, and the time has come for us to get back there. We are looked at—people are desperate for the UK to lead on this.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I have concerns about the Fair Work Agency in the new Employment Rights Bill, because it takes the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority and puts it into a new agency that will not sit underneath the Home Office. Vital work was done by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and then the GLAA, which was brought in for the right reasons—we all remember the Morecambe bay cockle pickers disaster. We need to ensure that there is proper Home Office oversight of that agency and that it focuses on abuse and exploitation, not just on ensuring that employment rights are met. We cannot continue with two classes of victims as we have at the moment. We need to ensure that everyone who is a victim of modern slavery can access the support that they need. Could the Minister review the national referral mechanism?”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I urge the Government to look at what we can do on similar measures, because they would be simple wins for the Government that would improve the situation and make it clear that we do not stand for slavery. We will not become green in our energy production on the backs of the poorest and those who are being exploited. What am I asking the Minister today? First, when will we have a new modern slavery strategy? We desperately need one, as the current one is 11 years old. Will she commit to strengthening supply chain measures? It has been a big disappointment to me that many Queen’s Speeches and King’s Speeches have included promises of new modern slavery legislation on supply chains, but it has never come forward. Will she commit to that?”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“When we brought in the section 54 measure on transparency in supply chains, although California had such a measure, it was the first time that a national Government had introduced one. Quite deliberately, it was a light touch provision—we had to prove that it would work and be effective—but the time has come for it to be tightened. I am disappointed that on Tuesday we were unable to pass the amendment on the use of Uyghur labour in the supply chain for solar panels and so on. The US has the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act 2021 and its hot goods provisions, whereby items cannot even enter the US market unless the importer can prove that there was no slavery in the supply chain.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“I wish to pay tribute to Senator Linda Reynolds, who is standing down from the Australian Parliament in the next few days. She has been a real leader on this. At the Inter-Parliamentary Union, she has passed resolutions that have been adopted. I hope the Minister will look favourably on amendments that I might bring forward to the Crime and Policing Bill, or to a private Member’s Bill, that try to get the issue of orphanage trafficking into our legislation. The people who want to support the orphanages do so with the best of intentions—they want to help the poor children—but this is actually a fraud. These children are not orphans. More than 5 million children from south-east Asia and South America have been taken away from their families and are being used to raise money for fake organisations.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“They are also in debt, and that indebtedness and the inability to work legally means that they then become victim of traffickers. But, as I have said, that was not a phenomenon we knew of at the time. Orphanage trafficking is another issue. It is a global issue that we are only just getting to terms with in the United Kingdom. We do not feel that the issue has affected us, but in reality more than 5 million children, who are not orphans, are currently living in orphanages. They are living in orphanages that have been set up to raise money. They have tourists visiting them and gap year students working there. They are there for the financial gain of those who have set up these orphanages. Australia has led the way in tackling that issue.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“However, I do want to make it clear that there is very little evidence that the people travelling on small boats are victims of trafficking—this was seen in the Home Affairs Committee. They are victims of the crime of people-smuggling. The problem is that the measures taken to stop the small boats have a chilling effect on those who are genuine victims of the coercive crime of human trafficking. That can mean that they do not come forward and that they will not provide the evidence that is needed to stop the perpetrators. That makes it harder to detect the crime and to give the protection to victims. This is a real opportunity for traffickers. Somebody may have paid the people smugglers to get them into the UK, but when they get here, they cannot legitimately work and they cannot find the support that they need.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“We were the first country to have a consolidated Modern Slavery Act, the first country to have transparency in supply chain legislation, and the first country that had this as a priority for Government. But the world has moved on. As we all know, criminals always move more quickly than the legislation. When we introduced the legislation, county lines were not a phenomenon. Although the offences in the Act are very appropriate for the perpetrators of county lines offences, the protections for victims simply do not fit the crimes that are perpetrated in county lines. The issue of small boats was not a phenomenon. It simply was not there when we introduced the Act.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For example, it was not there when I stood at that Dispatch Box and closed the debate on Second Reading, but it was introduced during the passage of the Bill. This was the measure that everybody wanted to see included. Importantly, though, it was not a stand-alone measure; it was part of a modern slavery strategy that had been published the year before. It was based on the “four Ps” approach to tackling crime: pursue, prevent, protect and prepare. There was so much in the modern slavery strategy beyond what was in the legislation. The legislation was landmark, but it was only a very small part of what was being done. In 2015, when the Modern Slavery Bill was enacted, it was world-leading.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗
“For example, we introduced a statutory defence, to ensure that victims come forward, which is incredibly important. Civil protection orders were also introduced, as were measures to enable law enforcement to more easily access the financial assets of perpetrators, which also included reparation orders. This was done because the only way to break this crime is to break the business model. There were also new duties on public agencies. The Act introduced the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner. Independent child trafficking advocates are included in the legislation, although it took a long time for us to get them there. The other piece of landmark legislation was the “transparency in supply chains” measure in section 54. This had not initially been in the Bill.”
House of Commons27 March 2025Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0Source ↗