Contribution
It is an honour to follow the hon. Members who have spoken today, all of whom have given such powerful speeches. Just two days ago, it was 218 years since William Wilberforce cajoled this Parliament into leading the way on combating slavery. The Abolition of Slave Trade Act was passed, to a standing ovation, on 25 March 1807. The Act made it illegal to trade and enslave people across the then British empire. Twenty-six years later, another groundbreaking piece of legislation, the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, ended the use of enslaved labour. However, slavery clearly did not stop, which is why we are talking about it today.
Modern slavery is just that: a modern version of the slavery we have always known. Slavery is right here, right now. It does not belong to the distant past or to a far-away country. As we have heard, the majority of the people referred to the national referral mechanism are British, and they are often men or boys. As a Parliament, we have to recommit to tackling slavery.
As we have heard, modern slavery has spread its tentacles into so many aspects of our lives. It is estimated that there are 50 million victims of modern slavery worldwide, including 122,000 in our country—the size of the population of Blackpool or Cambridge—so we have to renew our leadership to tackle modern slavery. In my own constituency of Bournemouth East, there will be women working in nail bars who are enslaved. There will be men working on building sites who are enslaved. There will be mostly women working in people’s homes as domestic slaves, and there will be many other types of servitude going on. The figures that are reported are the tip of the iceberg. These people are hiding in plain sight, and we need to get the message out that modern slavery is a priority of this Government, this Parliament and this country.
In my professional life before becoming an MP, I supported victims of modern slavery by finding them and getting them to safety quickly. I was the chair of an anti-slavery network for five years, and I led a mental health, domestic abuse and homelessness charity that had run a modern slavery service—it pioneered an independent trauma advisory role that got support to around 50 victims and survivors of modern slavery. I worked alongside fantastic colleagues on a report into the nature and extent of modern slavery in Oxford, which used an interesting methodology, beyond the typical reporting of stats from the police force. It worked in a case-based way with providers of support, and found that 123 modern slavery crimes were recorded in the Thames valley area in the five-year period that the report looked at. However, after drawing in the voluntary sector, there were believed to be between 319 and 442 cases of modern slavery, showing that what is reported is not always a true reflection of what is happening, and that our third sector organisations and networks are so important in trying to tackle modern slavery and support victims.
It is worth saying that the need to tackle modern slavery has never been greater. Although this anniversary marks a decade since the Modern Slavery Act, it is also the case that we have seen a decade or more of austerity. I say that because some of the people who are enslaved will have grown up under austerity and seen their Sure Start centres and youth centres cut. They will have seen their schools being able to provide less and less, and seen insecure work, low pay and zero-hours contracts for their parents. They will be living in homes that have not been properly regulated. They have grown up with significant vulnerability. When people grow up with significant vulnerability, they are so susceptible to enslavement— I have seen it with my own eyes.
Given the Government’s agenda on renters reform, reforming employment rights and making sure that we have investment in our public services, my hope is that we will repair the fabric of society and our public services so that no young person has to fall victim to modern slavery. In my own part of the country, we have seen the number of cases reported to Dorset police going up over the last nine years. There were 65 in 2023 and 108 in 2024, so we clearly need to take action.
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will bring the voices of modern slavery victims into this debate. I want to talk about three cases in which my office has supported victims. In one case, a person was identified as a potential victim of human trafficking and entered into the national referral mechanism. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) said that it is quite a bland name for a bland service, and he could not have described it better. The NRM is broken and needs serious reform. This individual’s case has been given a “reasonable grounds” decision, but they are still awaiting a “conclusive grounds” decision. It is no wonder, given that we have such long waits for decisions.