Holly Lynch – 2022 Comments on Illegal Immigration

The comments made by Holly Lynch, the Labour MP for Halifax, in the House of Commons on 13 December 2022.

Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)

The Prime Minister said in his statement that we will remove, “the gold-plating in our modern slavery system.” That modern slavery system is something of which we, across the Labour Benches, can be incredibly proud. It protected victims of modern slavery and also, crucially, allowed us to secure prosecutions against the abusers.

It is currently taking the Home Office 531 days on average to arrive at a conclusive grounds decision for victims. Around 90% of those decisions are positive, confirming that people were indeed victims of modern slavery. This will affect British and foreign children as well as adults, and some of those locked in county lines gangs as well as in sexual exploitation. Why is the Prime Minister tearing up the modern slavery system in this way?

The Prime Minister

That is simply not right. We are very proud of our modern slavery system and we want to make sure that it protects those genuine victims of modern slavery. It is absolutely right that they get their cases considered properly. The reason why that is not happening at the moment is that the system is being deluged with far more claims than it was ever designed to cope with. When the impact assessment on the Modern Slavery Bill was done, it anticipated 3,500 claims a year. What we are now facing is 12,500 in just the first three quarters of this year. It is right that we focus our attention on those who most need our help, and, in doing so, we can get those people the help they need as quickly as possible.