Ms Julie Minns

Ms Julie Minns

Labour — Carlisle

Speaking in the House of Commons on 27 March 2025

Debate

Modern Slavery Act 2015: 10th Anniversary

Contribution

On my hon. Friend’s point about modern slavery happening everywhere, Carlisle is the most northerly city in England. On 3 October 2018, officers from Cumbria police, the National Crime Agency, and investigators from the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority freed a man who had been kept in captivity on the outskirts of Carlisle for 40 years. He was vulnerable because of his learning disability, and had variously “lived”—been kept—in a horse box and in a disused caravan. When he was found, he was in a damp, rotten garden shed with neither heating nor lighting. The window did not close, the water poured through the door, and his makeshift bed was congealed with vomit. Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that someone could be kept in such a circumstance for 40 years on the outskirts of one of England’s cities should shame us all, and that we should recommit ourselves to ensuring that every single person who might still be in that circumstance is found and freed in the same way that that gentleman was?

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