Keeping up the struggle against modern-day slavery while also stopping the boats

Jul 18, 2023 by Jill

by Iain Duncan-Smith, Conservative Home:

It is right for the Government to try and deter those who are at present paying huge sums of money to criminal gangs of traffickers in an attempt to get them to the UK. Sadly, their money leaves too many of them in craft that are not seaworthy, and many have died in the Channel as a result. Stopping the boats and their human cargo is about saving lives as much as blocking illegal migration. To that end I believe it is right for the Government to act.

However, there is one element of the Illegal Migration Bill which I believe is not necessary to achieve that objective.

As it stands, this legislation runs the significant risk of restricting the Government and the police’s ability to catch and prosecute those criminal gangs involved in the trafficking and blatant abuse of the vulnerable.

First of all, there is a genuine difference between those who are trafficked and arrive in the UK against their will and those who pay smugglers to bring them across in boats. In 2022, only six per cent of small boat arrivals claimed modern-day slavery. This is a very small proportion of the people who use this route.

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