Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 Section 5 — House of Commons, 2019-09-30
Topic: Law and Crime
Fiona Claire Bruce (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention In 2015, the Northern Ireland Assembly became the first legislature in the United Kingdom to pass comprehensive human trafficking legislation. I commend Lord Morrow on his leading role in initiating that legislation and the Assembly on fully supporting its wide-ranging provisions. In some areas, it goes further than the human trafficking legislation in England and Wales, the Modern Slavery Act 2015, in providing statutory assistance and support for victims during the process of confirming victims, which is known as the national referral mechanism. There is also a fully implemented scheme of independent guardians for trafficked children. An article published in the journal Statute Law Review in 2016 described that Northern Ireland Act as "an impressive instrument" Section 18 of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Criminal Justice and Support for Victims) Act (Northern Ireland) sets out the first statutory support for victims, or potential victims still to be assessed, of a minimum of 45 days during the NRM process, but it also recognises that there are times when that support would need to be extended. Again, the Northern Ireland Assembly was ahead of the rest of the UK in that regard, because section 18(9) specifically allows for assistance and support to be extended beyond the point where a victim receives a positive conclusive grounds decision at the discretion of the Department of Justice. Indeed, it is one of the more bizarre features of the current system of identifying victims of trafficking that, once fully recognised as a victim, the state offers them no further statutory support. As the previous anti-slavery commissioner said, "supporting a potential victim until the conclusive decision is made and then ceasing support so abruptly could be damaging for the victim and negatively affect their recovery." In 2013-14, Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly envisaged that there could be circumstances in which it is not in the best interests of the victim for support to be stopped if they receive a positive conclusive-grounds decision. The Assembly was ahead of its time in recognising the need for victims to receive support beyond that point. The report that we are considering shows that, for the past three financial years, 17 victims received that additional support. That is welcome, although sadly the numbers are low. Will the Minister give us some more information on how long the victims were supported and say why information is scant? Will he confirm that those 17 did indeed receive that extended support after they had had a positive conclusive-grounds decision Northern Ireland introduced that pioneering legislation, and there has been much debate and dialogue about what assistance should be provided, and for how long. It has become clear that the extent of stability and support that victims need to help them on a pathway to recover beyond the NRM potentially has a huge impact on their ability to recover, on their resilience to the very real risk of re-trafficking, and on their capacity and confidence to participate in police investigations and court proceedings against their traffickers. They need that support to enable them to have the confidence to stand up and do so.