Member

There was an awful lot of discussion about how this group should be handled. These are people who predominantly came to the UK via a legal route and were exploited on UK soil. They are in the national referral mechanism because the Home Office has agreed that there are reasonable grounds to believe that they are victims of modern slavery. The national referral mechanism is not just a waiting room for decision; its stated purpose is recovery from exploitation. The right to work would certainly mean that this exploitation could be overcome. It makes absolute financial sense as well as being helpful for recovery. I hope that the Minister can confirm how many individuals currently in the national referral mechanism have the right to work and perhaps indicate some details of how the NRM backlog is being reduced.