(2) what plans he has for formal United Kingdom accession to the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings.
[holding answer 5 February 2007]: The Prime Minister announced on the 22 January the intention of the UK Government to sign the Convention. Details on how implementation will be taken forward are currently being developed. It will inevitably take some time to move from signature to ratification of the Convention. The implementation process will involve close co-operation with stakeholders, including non-governmental organisations, law enforcement and other Government Departments and agencies.
[holding answer 5 February 2007]: Data from the court proceedings database held by the Office for Criminal Justice Reform for the number of defendants proceeded against for various offences relating to trafficking of people in England and Wales, 2000 to 2005 can be found in the following table.
Statute Offence description 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Immigration Act 1971 Sec 25(1)(a). Knowingly concerned in making or carrying out arrangements for securing or facilitating the entry into the UK of anyone whom he knows or has reasonable cause for believing to be an illegal entrant. 169 190 216 213 18 4 Immigration Act 1971 Sec 25(1 )(b) as added by Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 S.5. Knowingly concerned in making or carrying out arrangements for securing or facilitating the entry into the UK of anyone whom he knows or has reasonable cause for believing to be an asylum claimant. 7 8 3 15 3 — Immigration Act 1971 Sec 25(1 )(c) as added by Asylum and Immigration Act 1996 S.5. Knowingly concerned in making or carrying out arrangements for securing or facilitating the obtaining of leave to remain in the UK by means which he knows or has reasonable cause for believing to include deception. 5 4 7 8 — — Immigration Act 1971 S25 as added by Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 S143 Assisting unlawful immigration to member state (was 194/11 and 12) — — — 39 135 99 Immigration Act 1971 S25A as added by Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 S143 Helping asylum-seeker to enter the UK. — — — 8 24 15 Immigration Act 1971 S25B as added by Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 S143 Assisting entry to UK in breach of deportation order or exclusion order. — — — — 2 5 Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004 S.4(2)(5) Trafficking people within the UK for the purpose of exploitation. — — — — — 1 Immigration Act, 1971 Sec 25(2). Knowingly harbouring an illegal entrant (or person believed to be an illegal entrant). 1 2 1 3 1 1 Immigration Act 1971 Sec 25(2). Knowingly harbouring a non citizen who has remained in UK beyond the time allowed or has failed to observe a condition of the leave. 1 — 1 4 — 1 Total 183 204 228 290 183 126 1 These data are on the principal offence basis. 2 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the courts and police forces. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. 3 The Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004 Section 4 came into force in 2004. 4 Staffordshire police force were only able to submit sample data for persons proceeded against and convicted in the magistrates courts for the year 2000. Although sufficient to estimate higher orders of data, these data are not robust enough at a detailed level and have been excluded from the table. Source: RDS Office for Criminal Justice Reform