I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Appropriations Act 2007

Planning-gain Supplement (Preparations) Act 2007

Income Tax Act 2007.

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make further provision for the protection of wild birds’ nests.

The Bill seeks to give added protection to birds and their nests and to regularise existing law, which currently gives birds that nest in Scotland more protection than those that nest in England.

People in the United Kingdom like birds. About 210 species of bird breed in the UK every year, many of which are rare. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has around 1.1 million members. Last January up to 470,000 people took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, and it is estimated that 2.85 million people regularly go birdwatching. This love of birds and nature contributes greatly to local economies, helping to attract tourists and day visitors, often to remote parts of rural England and Wales.

Shropshire, like Devon, has its fair share of birdwatchers. Let me record my thanks to Shropshire’s “twitchers” for their support for my campaign to obtain county wildlife status for Priorslee lake, home to the occasional visiting purple heron and pectoral sandpiper.

In these days of contemplating the possible effects of climate change, birds and their behaviour are helpful indicators to scientists and Governments alike—perhaps even more reliable, and certainly less expensive, than multi-million-pound meteorological satellites. It may be an inconvenient truth for unscrupulous local authorities and developers, but birds matter.

There is evidence that some winter visiting birds, particularly waders and wildfowl, are coming to Britain in smaller numbers. That may be because the climate in continental Europe is becoming warmer, which means that birds have no need to migrate so far, and engage in so-called short-stopping.

There is also pressure on breeding birds; when feeding and nesting cycles begin to change, it creates new life challenges for all our feathered summer visitors, who may return to find the best breeding sites occupied by resident birds, and the first flash of caterpillars already gone. Much important monitoring work is undertaken by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which owns or manages 200 nature reserves. I am grateful for its support for my Bill, and to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The Government rightly made bird populations one of their quality-of-life indicators, but that indicator all too often reveals that some birds, particularly those on farm land, have yet to recover from the major declines of the 1970s and 1980s. It is therefore incumbent on us all, including the Government, to do all that we can to protect and nurture species that are few in number, as well as those that are plentiful, but whose loss would diminish our countryside and our great nation.

With the demand for residential and commercial building growing, the need to protect the country’s birds has never been so pressing. Will the Minister today give an undertaking to ensure that bird populations are not affected by the demand for 135,000 new homes in Shropshire in the next decade, or the excessive new homes target for the rest of England and Wales? Britain’s most common and best-loved birds that breed in hedgerows and trees all too often fall victim to developers and local authorities, who remove trees and hedges without due diligence and rightful consideration of birds’ nests and the important breeding season. Just imagine if there was no more symphony of the song thrush, no more rhapsody in yellow of the blue tit, no more Mendelssohnian accompaniment of the blackbird, no more red rapturous reaches of the robin, and no more soprano sonnets of the swallow. Imagine a world without birdsong—a desolate landscape, souls unrevived, a gnawing and bereft silence. The Bill seeks to give added protection to those and other birds and their nests.

Under the provisions of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, amended by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 and the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006, it is an offence deliberately to damage or destroy wild birds and their nests, with certain exceptions, for which a licence is required. However, it is not an offence to do so if the accused can demonstrate that they were unaware of the consequences of their actions. The Bill would close that loophole by making reckless damage an offence, and it would require local authorities, developers and others to be far more careful in their local development, particularly in breeding season.

I remind the Minister for Local Environment, Marine and Animal Welfare that introducing an offence of recklessness in wildlife legislation would not be an innovation. Some offences in schedule 1 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, as amended, include “recklessness”, but the schedule does not apply to the more serious offences of destruction and reckless damage of birds’ nests. We might also look to Scotland, where the Scottish Parliament has rightly given birds added protection. The Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 and the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004 amended the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, making reckless damage an offence north of the border. Scottish legislation says that all birds, and their nests and eggs, are protected by law, and it is an offence, with certain exceptions, to intentionally or recklessly take, damage, or destroy or otherwise interfere with the nest of any wild bird while the nest is in use or being built.

The next time that colleagues see birds flying north, they should reflect that they might just be flying north to escape the weak wildlife laws in England and Wales. Closing the loophole would make it easier to deal with unscrupulous individuals who kill protected birds, sometimes rare species, and then claim that it was an innocent mistake. One example of such an occurrence was the shooting of a bittern, a rare heron, of which there are only about 50 breeding males left in the country. The individual who shot the bird claimed that he thought it was a pheasant.

On another occasion in 2005, two people who were apparently shooting rooks shot a rare marsh harrier, claiming that they thought it was a rook. Demonstrating intent in such cases is difficult, so closing the recklessness loophole would make people far more careful when shooting birds. That change could help, too, to protect rarer birds that nest on industrial sites, quarries and wasteland such as the black redstart, the UK population of which consists of fewer than 100 pairs. Other species that nest in those areas, usually near water, include the little ringed plover—another scarce bird—and the sand martin.

That leads to the thorny issue of enforcement. While I welcome the fact that the Countryside and Rights of Way Act increased penalties for wildlife crime—offenders now risk being jailed for up to six months or being fined up to £20,000 for damaging sites of special scientific interest—those laws must be enforced, and the police, Natural England and the Countryside Council for Wales must take wildlife crime far more seriously.

In conclusion, will the Minister consider introducing measures to require local authorities and developers to carry out nest surveys before commencing works? The survey need not be complicated, but, if a development is likely to impinge on a habitat with nesting birds, surely developers should have to demonstrate that a bird survey had been undertaken. Will the Minister work with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to agree what constitutes the breeding season? Currently, the breeding season is not defined in UK law, but the law does give protection to a nest while it is being built or is in use. That confusion does not help to reduce wildlife crime.

Bird populations should become quality-of-life indicators for local authorities, perhaps audited by the RSPB or by local wildlife trusts, and wildlife crimes should become performance indicators for police forces. Unless that happens, wildlife crime will continue to remain low on the police’s list of priorities. There should be a standard police reporting format, which would allow greater transparency and traceability of action taken—or not taken—by police forces. The Government say that they want to save the planet, but if they cannot save the thousands of trees and hedges that are destroyed each year, and the bird species that rely on them, what real hope is there for any of us? Mankind does not own nature—we are its custodians—so it is the duty of all of us, including Government, to ensure that birds throughout England and Wales live to sing another day.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mark Pritchard, Mr. Kenneth Clarke, Mr. John Randall, Mr. Eric Pickles, Mr. Stewart Jackson, Mr. Elliot Morley, Lyn Brown, David Taylor, Mr. David Drew, Mr. Tom Watson and Tim Farron.

Wild Birds (protection)

Mark Pritchard accordingly presented a Bill to make further provision for the protection of wild birds’ nests: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 19 October, and to be printed [Bill 83].

Today, the House commemorates the 200th anniversary of its legislation to abolish the appalling and unacceptable slave trade. This indeed is an historic moment for the United Kingdom, which led the world in legislating against the vile trade in the slavery of human beings. I welcome the participation of the right hon. Members for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) and for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) in this debate, and I thank them for their support for this year’s commemoration.

Today is also an opportunity for me to thank publicly the members of the bicentenary advisory group, as well as my ministerial colleagues, the Leader in the other place, Baroness Amos, the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Mr. Coaker) and the Minister for Women and Equality, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn). I am grateful for the hard work and imagination that they and their staff have brought to this important year of events. I also want to express my appreciation for the work of many stakeholders and local authorities around the country who are participating in the commemorations, especially in Liverpool, Bristol, London and Hull, the home of William Wilberforce MP.

Events for this year are to be found in the commemorative booklet to be launched on Thursday, which will be made available to Members of both Houses. The events can be found in more detail on the BBC website, along with a superb set of programme discussions of the highest quality, which I am sure Members will have noticed have already begun. On behalf of the House, I congratulate the BBC on its efforts, especially Chantal Badjie, the project director of the BBC’s season on the abolition of the slave trade.

The House will be aware of the launch of this year’s commemoration by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, followed by a wider series of events over this weekend. There will be a national memorial service at Westminster Abbey next Tuesday, and a parliamentary exhibition will open in Westminster Hall from 23 May to September. There will be a young persons’ debate here in Parliament in September, at which young people from Africa and the Caribbean will join youngsters from Britain.

Two replica slave ships are making voyages to commemorate the north Atlantic slave trade this year. The Zong, the ship from the film “Amazing Grace”, will arrive in the UK next Thursday. The Amistad will sail from America on 21 June, arriving in the UK in time for 23 August, the annual UNESCO day against slavery, as part of the commemoration by museums and local authorities. It will call at Bristol, London and Liverpool, and then sail to Africa and the Caribbean.

We are also encouraging a debate about how we can commemorate the anniversary as a national event in the future. Should we have a national day of commemoration every year, and if so, when? The House may be aware that the European Commission supports 11 June as the European day against human trafficking. That day could be a candidate for an annual commemorative event, but I leave that for discussion.

I am sure that the whole House will join me in paying tribute to William Wilberforce’s 20 year campaign to secure the first piece of legislation to make slavery illegal. To put that in perspective, Parliament, prior to that legislation, had already passed over 100 laws accommodating the slave trade. Those laws allowed slaves to be treated by the courts as property, not as people. Many died and, yes, some were murdered, in the most criminal circumstances, with no redress.

The Deputy Prime Minister is right in what he says about William Wilberforce, and the whole House would support him, but does he agree that slavery has not disappeared? We have a new form of slavery, which is the trafficking of human beings. Does the right hon. Gentleman think it right to say that slavery has disappeared when it has not?

No, and I will make that clear in my speech, as the hon. Gentleman did in the debate in Westminster Hall, which I read. The most horrific circumstances were described there, and we are grateful to the hon. Gentleman for holding that debate.

William Wilberforce was the parliamentary leader of an abolitionist movement that embraced thousands of people, from all walks of life. It became a mass movement of popular discontent against a barbaric and inhuman trade. Parliament had to accept the will of the people and the cause of the abolitionists. This bicentenary is an opportunity for us all to remember the millions who were sold into slavery, and also to remember the people who were horrified by the inhumanity and indignity of slavery and whose values of fairness and social justice led them to fight slavery. They included slaves and former slaves, Church leaders, Quakers, politicians and countless ordinary citizens who signed petitions, marched, lobbied and campaigned for change.

Some of those are remembered on the stamps which the Royal Mail is issuing for the anniversary on Thursday. The stamps depict William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, a major campaigner at home and abroad, the philanthropist Granville Sharp, and the philanthropist and religious writer Hannah More.

The stamps included leading former slaves who became inspirational campaigners—Sancho and Equiano, who helped free slaves to resettle from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone. In 1792, the British Prime Minister, William Pitt, said that the slave trade was

“the greatest stigma on our national character which ever yet existed.”

More than 200 years later, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said:

“The bicentenary offers us a chance, not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was, how we condemn its existence utterly and we praise those who fought for its abolition. But also to express our deep sorrow that it ever happened, that it ever could have happened.”

I understand that as many as 40 per cent. of the slaves who were shipped from Africa went through the ports of Ghana and Sierra Leone. The House is aware that last week President Kufuor of Ghana had a very successful state visit. In July last year, he visited Hull to open the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, the first academic institution dedicated to the study of past and modern-day slavery. In August, it will hold a conference in Ghana with UNESCO on the abolition of the slave trade.

This weekend, I am looking forward to welcoming, with my parliamentary colleagues, the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mr. Owen Arthur, to Hull to give his Wilberforce lecture. He will receive a book on the remarkable contribution of Caribbean workers to the success of the national health service, produced by the Department of Health and to be presented by the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster, Central (Ms Winterton).

Last month in Ghana, I saw at first hand Elmina castle, which was used in this pernicious slave trade—a symbol of man’s inhumanity to man. I saw the dungeons. The cold, dank stench of evil remains there today, as do the stone walls—“the point of no return”. Those dungeons have become shrines, with wreaths laid by Americans of African descent who came to witness the remains of this repugnant trade. In Freetown in Sierra Leone, I saw where the slaves liberated by the Royal Navy came ashore via the freedom steps—such a contrast to the point of no return. Indeed, we should recognise the important role played by the Royal Navy in arresting ships and freeing slaves and returning them to Africa.

A memorable part of my trip was visits to schools, where the children were enthusiastic and keen to learn, and so proud to wear their uniforms. The Vine Memorial school in Sierra Leone is twinned with Kelvin Hall school in Hull. I also visited the Montessori school at Cape Coast, which is twinned with a school in Derbyshire. The children expressed their feelings in the most dramatic re-enactment of the slave chain that I have ever seen. They said:

“Not every black man was innocent. Not every white man was guilty”—

an accurate and powerful statement on that evil trade from the mouths of schoolchildren.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, should feel the sorrow, the pain and the regret—yes, the regret. As the Ghanaian Minister for Tourism said to me during a UNESCO conference that we both addressed: “We don’t need apologies. We need forgiveness—from all and for all—for man’s inhumanity to men, women and children.” The Minister pointed out that the community of the African diaspora were distributed around the world and called on their descendants to come back to help Ghana and other African nations in what he described as an act of pilgrimage—to come to visit and to help in their development and in the education of their children.

Indeed, it is one of the world’s greatest scandals that, even today, 100 million children across the world do not go to primary school; they are denied one of the most basic rights of all—the right to education. Up to two thirds of Africa’s children never complete a full primary education. What a waste of talent and potential. History has given us an obligation to help them to realise their full potential, recognising that education is central to tackling inequality. The Government are working with countries around the world to do this. As announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Britain is planning to spend £8.5 billion over the next 10 years to support long-term education plans in poor countries—that is four times as much as in the previous 10 years. We call on other rich countries to follow so that by 2015 children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete at least five years of quality education.

Today, we look forward to realising the huge potential of a new Africa in which every person can one day be freed from injustice, poverty, disease and modern slavery. Poverty and social exclusion are at the root of most forms of slavery and forced labour today, but Africa is the only continent that is getting poorer and where, in many places, life expectancy is falling. Africa is currently failing to meet its millennium development targets.

I had the privilege of meeting my right hon. Friend in Hastings, Sierra Leone, with which my own town is twinned. Is it not a disgrace that Sierra Leoneans have £40 a year spent on their health, education and all their other needs, while we have £9,500 a year? Is it not shameful that such differences still exist in this century?

That is a powerful statement. My hon. Friend, and my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mrs. Curtis-Thomas), joined me in Sierra Leone, where we visited schools and saw the quality of the education and the buildings there. I would like to congratulate both my hon. Friends on making a contribution to the community by helping to develop community facilities and improving the education for the children. Many other local authorities could help by making contributions there as well, and I shall come back to that in a moment.

The world is now focusing on how we can help Africa to tackle its problems. I am proud that the UK led the way with African countries in setting up the Commission for Africa to address those issues. Through the UK’s partnership in aid and investment with African nations, and our support of the global work of UNESCO and other international organisations, our Government are working to help Africa to help itself.

The House should also recognise the role of local government in assisting countries of slave origin. My own city of Hull is twinned with Freetown and is giving assistance. They are now discussing whether it is possible to help Freetown to rebuild its town hall, which was burnt down, and to rename it Wilberforce house. In Sierra Leone, I met my two hon. Friends, whose constituents have been helping the communities of Waterloo and Hastings, which are twinned with their namesake towns. They are helping to provide a library and community facilities. It is noticeable that a number of towns in those countries share the same name as towns in our country. That presents an ideal opportunity, as my hon. Friends have demonstrated, to make a direct contribution to those namesake towns. Much more could be done by local authorities and towns in the United Kingdom to assist communities in those countries, and I would like to see that happen as part of the legacy of this year’s events.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the role of the British Council in facilitating twinning between our schools has been of tremendous help? It has now begun to roll out a significant programme, extending the initiative to far more schools. Is not that something that we need to see far more of?

I am glad that my hon. Friend has brought that to our attention. Every Member of the House who witnesses the work of the British Council cannot but admire the efforts that it has made. I am sure that we would all like to record how much we appreciate its efforts in the twinning of schools and classrooms, such as those that I saw in Ghana and Sierra Leone. Also, it is prepared to organise the youth debates that take place here in Parliament so that we can involve young people from twinned schools in the United Kingdom, the Caribbean and Africa. We look forward to those events, which take place thanks to the abilities and the organisation of the British Council.

When I first began to explore how we could commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, I immediately recognised the importance of ensuring that our young people have the chance to get involved and have their say. I went to the St. Paul’s area of Bristol, and to Liverpool, and asked young black people how they wanted to mark the anniversary. They stressed to me the importance of looking forward as well as looking into the past. They felt that their school history lessons did not teach a proper black history or give enough attention to black achievements. “Yes”, they said, “we should reflect on the past, but we should also look to the future.” This year, we are considering important changes to the school curriculum. It will incorporate the study of the slave trade as a compulsory element of our history curriculum, with all slavery’s brutality and inhumanity, and not just as an element of our colonial past. The bicentenary commemoration is about looking forward as well as back. Slavery did not end when the Act of Parliament was passed in 1807: it continued in the colonies and elsewhere. The abolition of slavery across the world remains unfinished business.

In 1998, the United Nations set up its working group on contemporary forms of slavery, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported:

“Slavery continues to be reported in a wide range of forms: traditional chattel slavery, bonded labour, serfdom, child labour, migrant labour, domestic labour, forced labour and slavery for ritual or religious purposes”.

All of that is happening in the 21st century. The nations of the world must unite and campaign to end the unspeakable cruelty that persists in the form of modern-day slavery. I urge the House to support the Government’s commitment to work with all countries to end the scandal of slavery in all its modern forms.

A few months ago in New York, I discussed modern slavery and human trafficking with Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General of the United Nations. All nations must honour article IV of the UN declaration of human rights, which requires that slavery be prohibited in all its forms. As Kofi Annan said in a lecture in January,

“In the 21st century, Africa differs in very fundamental ways from the Africa of old.”

My right hon. Friend will be aware that many countries are attempting to tackle the trafficking of women for sexual purposes, and I am glad that the Government have agreed to sign the convention on that. Is he aware, however, that in Sweden, which has criminalised men paying for sex, the trafficking of women for sex has been reduced to a handful of women? In comparison, in Finland, which has not taken the same approach, 15,000 women a year are still trafficked into the country for sex. Would he advise his colleagues in the Government to consider that example?

I am aware of the issues to which my hon. Friend refers. The common experience is being considered across Europe, and an action plan will be launched shortly, to which I will refer in a few minutes, that will take into account all those experiences in order to prevent that terrible traffic.

I can announce today that Kofi Annan has agreed to address Parliament in the Royal Gallery on 8 May, which will be an important event in this commemorative year.

In New York, I held talks with UN ambassadors from the nations affected by trafficking, as well as with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Last month, I held discussions in Geneva with the International Labour Organisation and its sister agencies concerned with human trafficking. The ILO estimates that a minimum of 12.3 million people are enslaved in the world today. Of those trafficked into forced labour, 43 per cent. are subjected to sexual exploitation, 32 per cent. to labour exploitation, and 25 per cent. to a mixture of both. The estimated value of that criminal activity is approximately $32 billion. The ILO says that 218 million children were trapped in child labour in 2004, of whom 126 million were in hazardous work. UNICEF estimates that that figure reached 171 million by 2006. It is hard to imagine the misery represented by those figures.

It is true that all countries find it difficult to make an accurate assessment of the scale of human trafficking. That became clear in the debates on the matter in Westminster Hall and the other place in December. It is a complex global problem that requires the co-operation of many agencies across the European Union and beyond. In the United Kingdom, emerging findings suggest that in 2003, at any one moment, there were about 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution. The same study estimated the total costs of trafficking for prostitution to be about £1 billion in 2003. We cannot, however, calculate the appalling misery and despair of victims in purely financial terms.

Intelligence indicates that the average selling price for an adult woman is between £2,000 and £3,000. In one debate, it was suggested that the figure was as high as £8,000. An appalling incident took place in which a Lithuanian girl was lured to the UK to sell ice cream in the summer, and was taken from brothel to brothel by a gang. She was sold seven times in three months. All that took place in the United Kingdom of today. I am sure that the whole House is appalled and disgusted by that. That is why we signed and ratified the Palermo protocol to combat trafficking, especially of women and children.

The UK human trafficking centre, which the Association of Chief Police Officers helped to set up last year, is a central point for developing expertise and co-operation by police and immigration officers. The Government have funded the POPPY project since March 2003 to provide safe shelter and support to assist in the recovery of adult female victims who have been trafficked in the UK for sexual exploitation. I note the criticisms that have been made in all the debates about the adequacy of the provision, and the matter is genuinely under consideration.

The Government will sign and ratify the Council of Europe convention against trafficking in human beings. In fact, it will be signed on Friday by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who will also publish our action plan, which has been discussed in the Chamber, to tackle human trafficking.

The Deputy Prime Minister has not mentioned demand. The problem in this country is that trafficking is demand led. As long as there is demand from men for sexually trafficked women, it will continue. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the Government could do much more to provide safe houses? There are only 35 places in London, and there are no other safe houses in the country.

The hon. Gentleman made exactly those points in previous debates. They have some substance, to say the least, and he knows that those matters are being considered in preparation for the action plan, which the Home Secretary will publish on Friday. I must ask the hon. Gentleman to wait and see the conclusions of the review, which has gone on for almost 12 months.

We are improving our intelligence on and understanding of the scope and scale of child trafficking, and a full report on the extent of human trafficking will be published.

In this bicentenary year, we commemorate the past, but with a strong commitment to overcome the challenges of today. We recognise the tremendous contribution of the African and Caribbean diaspora to the success of this country and the diversity of our culture and heritage. We renew our commitment to help overcome poverty, educate the children of Africa and combat the evil of slavery and human trafficking wherever it occurs.

In this House in 1789, William Wilberforce, in his first major speech on slavery, spoke words that could equally apply to modern-day slavery and human trafficking:

“Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us:— we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it; it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it. We may spurn it, we may kick it out of the way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it. For it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, (and to their own consciences) the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision.”

Those words of Wilberforce in Parliament in the 18th century are equally applicable to human trafficking in the 21st century. The House must show the same commitment as Wilberforce. Signing and ratifying the Council of Europe convention is a good and appropriate step in that direction.

Let the anniversary that we commemorate today lead to a wider discussion and greater recognition of slavery in its old and new contexts, and to redressing the evil imbalance that it continues to create. Reminded by our past, we reinforce our commitment to a future in which there can be social justice and freedom for all.

It is a great pleasure to follow the Deputy Prime Minister and a huge pleasure to agree with almost everything he said. That may be a rare event, but it is welcome. If William Wilberforce could have known that 200 years after the passage of the abolition Act a debate commemorating it would not only take place but be introduced by two Yorkshire Members of Parliament, one of them representing Hull, in a spirit of cross-party agreement for which he always fought, he would be proud. It is fitting that we can mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade with today’s debate. We should be grateful for the opportunity to reflect on such an important landmark in the history of our nation and our Parliament.

As I shadow the Deputy Prime Minister on the Floor of the House, it falls to me to respond to his remarks, although I should also declare an interest, as I have written an unpublished book on the matters under discussion. I have a deep personal interest in these matters—as I know does the Deputy Prime Minister—having revered the name of Wilberforce for a long time. [Interruption.] No, I will not go into when the book is to be published; that is a separate matter. I have long revered the name of Wilberforce, the parliamentarian from Hull, whose decades-long fight to abolish and suppress the slave trade made him one of the greatest campaigners—indeed, one of the greatest liberators —in the whole of British history. The tale of his work—and, importantly, that of his allies, as it was not simply his work—is a truly inspiring story of high ideals pursued in spite of almost every conceivable adversity, and of enormous feats of argument that were all too often preceded by despair as to whether progress could ever be made. As we approach the bicentenary of the passing of the Act to abolish the slave trade in 1807, it is appropriate that we pay tribute to that extraordinary accomplishment.

The right hon. Gentleman will know from his research that one of the most important battles that William Wilberforce had to fight was with the bishops of the Church of England, not one of whom supported the abolition of the slave trade. Indeed, many of them retained slaves rights until 1833, when owning slaves was also made illegal. The Bishop of Exeter was remunerated to the sum of £13,000 for the 665 slaves that he had. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will want to put on the record that the Church of England has changed its mind, finally.

The hon. Gentleman has managed to put that on the record without my needing to stagger into the controversy. William Wilberforce approached the abolition of the slave trade—and, indeed, many other matters—in a far more evangelical way than the Church of England at that time. He took up the cause and made it a Christian cause, but it was the Quakers and evangelicals in general, rather than the established Church, who helped to set him on that path, so the hon. Gentleman’s point is valid.

The 1807 Act’s Second Reading was carried 200 years ago here in this House—or just around the corner in St. Stephen’s chapel, which was then the House. In the early hours of a cold February morning the Commons voted to end the practice of trading in human beings, and as the Members rose as a body to salute William Wilberforce he bowed his head and quietly wept. For him, the passing of the Act was the outcome of a 20-year parliamentary struggle. Almost every year for two decades he had introduced similar proposals in the Commons, only for them to be rejected because of powerful economic and political opposition, or to be thwarted because of war or hostility to the French revolution and social upheaval.

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the vicar of Holy Trinity church, Clapham, also played a very important part in respect of William Wilberforce’s commitment to the anti-slavery campaign—and many other campaigns, such as that against bear baiting—and that the Clapham sect was at the centre of the campaign that secured the abolition of the slave trade?

Yes, the Clapham sect is one of the most extraordinary evangelical and reforming groups of people ever in the history of our country, and what was preached by John Venn at the church in Clapham was very important in influencing its work.

I was recalling the moment in 1807 when the Bill to abolish the slave trade received its Second Reading. It received Royal Assent on 25 March, which is why we shall commemorate these matters this coming Sunday—that is when the Bill to abolish the slave trade became an Act. I went to the House of Lords archive room to look at the document. It states:

“Be it therefore enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty…That from and after the First Day of May One thousand eight hundred and seven, the African Slave Trade, and all manner of dealing and trading in the Purchase, Sale, Barter, or Transfer of Slaves, or of Persons intended to be sold, transferred, used, or dealt with as Slaves, practiced or carried on, in, at, to or from any Part of the Coast or Countries of Africa, shall be…utterly abolished, prohibited, and declared to be unlawful”.

With those words, the behaviour of an empire was changed forever. Today we are remembering—

Before the right hon. Gentleman moves on from his historical analysis, will he acknowledge how fundamental the slave trade was to the economy of Britain at that time? For example, is he aware that much of the capital for the early industrialisation of south Wales came from a slave trade based in Bristol?

The hon. Gentleman need not fear that I am moving on from my historical analysis. It is not often that one can legitimately discuss history at some length on the Floor of this House, and I have quite a bit of it to come. There was much debate about this issue, but yes, the slave trade was thought to be very important to the economy of this country. William Pitt, when he was Prime Minister, said that 80 per cent. of Britain’s overseas income was derived from our West Indian colonies, although not necessarily from the slave trade, the profitability of which was often disputed. That said, it was clearly profitable enough for a lot of people in Liverpool and Bristol to engage in it. However, through the existence of slavery, the plantations were clearly enormously profitable, at times, because of the immense European demand for sugar in the 18th century.

Why did Jefferson, who was quite an enlightened American President round about that time, never take up the cudgels on behalf of the anti-slavery movement?

Funnily enough, the American Congress abolished the slave trade at roughly the same time that the British Parliament did, although it did less about enforcement. An illicit American slave trade continued right up to just before the civil war. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the United States had certain internal problems when it came to resolving the issue of slavery, which resulted in civil war in the 1860s.

Does my right hon. Friend also recall that during the civil war Abraham Lincoln was described as having been persuaded by John Bright, a Member of this Parliament, to attach greater significance to the question of slavery? Effectively, that is how slavery became the key issue for the civil war—and it came from this House of Commons.

Well, I am sure that that was added to by the House of Commons, although my hon. Friend must remember that there were already people in the United States who felt very strongly against slavery, and that the northern states had abolished it. The southern states, given their cotton production, thought it in their interest to keep it. There were even bigger forces at work than the notable force to which my hon. Friend refers.

In 1807, the Act was passed, and the then Prime Minister, William Grenville, who was very keen to railroad it through both Houses of Parliament, described it as

“the most glorious measure that had ever been adopted by any legislative body in the world”.

This country was the first in Europe, other than Denmark, to outlaw the slave trade, and the Act was the catalyst for the adoption of similar legislation around the world. It became a moral benchmark of which other civilised societies rightly took note. The passage of the Act is heartening to those who are conscious of the early foundations of our democratic society. It took place because of the wide dissemination of truths about the trade, because of the shifting and then harnessing of public opinion, and because of the actions and contributions of slaves themselves, coupled with the stoic perseverance of a few principled individuals. Ultimately, it secured something that could not happen in countries where political freedom was not yet known.

The right hon. Gentleman said that this was the first country in Europe to abolish slavery, which is absolutely true. [Interruption.] Except for Denmark. However, the first country in the world to abolish slavery was Haiti, which fought a revolution to do so under the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture.

Yes. Being only part way through my historical analysis, I wanted to come to Haiti—in a moment, in fact.

I want to reiterate a point that has already been mentioned. The enlightened determination and actions of abolitionists had to shine out against a far darker backdrop. The course of slavery winds a long route throughout history, and when we consider events before 1807—the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned this—it is with deep regret that we have to acknowledge an era in which the sale of men, women and children was carried out lawfully on behalf of this country, and on such a vast scale that it became a large and lucrative commercial enterprise. No wonder Wilberforce cried out, in his speech in the Commons in 1791:

“Never, never will we desist till we have wiped away this scandal from the Christian name, released ourselves from the load of guilt, under which we at present labour, and extinguished every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonour to this country.”

Those are words that we need to remember in the present day, as the Deputy Prime Minister said, in the case of modern slavery, to which I shall also return in a moment.

My right hon. Friend mentions the stoic perseverance of many individuals. I ask him to join me in acknowledging the contribution made by John Newton, the slave trader who became an abolitionist and parish priest of Olney, the town in which I now live.

This is becoming an interesting geographical and historical tour. John Newton was important partly in persuading William Wilberforce to continue in politics rather than lead a life of religious seclusion and that Christian principles needed to be put into action. Newton constantly counselled the abolitionists, so he played an important part.

It is worth noting that the fight against the slave trade was also an early campaign against racism. It was an important attribute of the abolitionists that they set out not only to end the slave trade, but to demonstrate that former slaves could live freely and prosperously with equality between every race. They pioneered the free colony of Sierra Leone and gave much support to the leaders of Haiti, who had thrown off their colonial masters. The abolitionists believed not only in the relief of suffering but the establishment of racial equality. It must have been the first campaign of that kind.

I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will also acknowledge that much of the campaigning outlined what was happening in the slave colonies and the trade itself, not forgetting the uprising taking place in west Africa. The slaves themselves played a major part in their freedom and it was people such as Thomas Clarkson who toured the country showing what the manacles of slavery were really about who had a massive effect on pushing Wilberforce and eventually forcing a reluctant Parliament to do something.

That is an important point, because the campaign was not just a parliamentary campaign. Thomas Clarkson played an enormous part in the powerful extra-parliamentary campaign. In a world with so many recording devices of every kind, it is hard for us to imagine a political world without film or photographs, and no documentary of what was happening. The campaigners of the time had to establish facts that had never been nailed down and come up with statistics that no one had ever assembled. They had to persuade people of something that was true even though other people were prepared to say that the opposite was true. People would not have known initially whom to believe, and that makes the scale of the abolitionists’ achievement all the greater.

I compliment the right hon. Gentleman on an entertaining and informative speech. I am learning a lot just from listening to it—[Interruption.] One might say that that does not often happen in this place. Does he accept that it is a mark of the success of those brave individuals, such as Sir William Roscoe in Liverpool, and of their dedication to the campaign—and the words that the right hon. Gentleman has just quoted from an early speech on the subject—that they brought about such a huge change in the culture in the UK that our towns and cities now have memorials to those great people because of the work that they did on slavery?

Let me use that intervention to turn to my next point, in the interests of someone else being able to give a speech eventually. The right hon. Lady is really talking about reasons why we should be proud of what was achieved, including by people in Liverpool who campaigned against the slave trade despite the presumption that the city should be in favour of its continuing. I wish to argue that just as the existence of the slave trade should be a cause of British regret, so its abolition should be a matter of British pride.

Not only did Britain abolish the slave trade: after 1807, it lobbied, bullied and bribed other nations to follow its example. Britain was the world’s foremost maritime power, and the Royal Navy bravely enforced the abolition of slavery—an assignment that was to be one of the most protracted and gruelling in its history. The suppression of the slave trade was described as

“perhaps the most disagreeable, arduous and unhealthy service that falls to the lot of British officers and seamen”.

Over a period of 40 years, the Navy was said to have freed 120,000 slaves. The moral case, once made and enshrined in law, was upheld over the coming decades through a commitment to international diplomacy and the application of British force. Although the outlawing of the slave trade has become synonymous with the life of William Wilberforce, he himself pointed out that he was

“only one among many fellow labourers”.

We hear less about the contributions made by men such as Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, Zachary Macaulay, James Stephen and Olaudah Equiano. Elizabeth Heyrick was one of the foremost women campaigners for the abolition of the institution of slavery after the slave trade itself had been abolished. We must remember, too, that we are unable to mention the bravery of numerous slaves: history is silent about that, because their actions were not written down at the time.

We should also be proud that one of the great achievements of the abolitionist campaign was political engagement through the mobilisation of public opinion. Once people in this country realised that the nature of the slave trade was incompatible with the values that they upheld, they acted in their hundreds of thousands. Petitions signed by men and women with no vote and thus no method of lobbying Parliament flowed from all corners of the country. One petition from the inhabitants of Manchester measured 7 m in length, and the masses of anti-slave trade tracts that were distributed were vigorously read. People attended lectures and meetings, and Thomas Clarkson—already mentioned by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) and one of Wilberforce’s indispensable allies—covered 35,000 miles in seven years on speaking tours. Even with all the modern forms of transport available to us today, we would still consider that to be a large total. Clarkson took with him shackles and other instruments from slave ships, along with samples of African cloth to show that an alternative and civilised trade could be substituted for slavery.

In one of the first consumer boycotts in history, hundred of thousands of people refused to use West Indian sugar. The humanity displayed by the British public was compared to

“tinder which has immediately caught fire from the spark of information which has been struck upon it”.

The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the sugar boycott. Does he agree that women led the way in making that political statement, as they were the ones who bought and cooked the food?

It turned out that women were in a powerful position to impose that boycott, for the reasons that the hon. Lady set out. In the 1820s, the even more radical campaign to abolish the institution of slavery itself came to the fore in towns such as Leicester, Sheffield and Birmingham, with women as its pioneers. At one point, it was thought that about a quarter of the population was refusing to use West Indian sugar. That shows the power at the time of popular campaigning—something that people had not been used to until just a few decades before.

The moral case against slavery may now seem clear cut, but it had to be made in an age before mass media and in a country with few graphic examples of the suffering and pain caused to millions transported across the Atlantic on British ships. The autobiographical writings of Olaudah Equiano, a former slave, contained a rare account of the conditions on board those ships. He wrote:

“The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number of the ship, being so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself almost suffocated us…The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered it a scene of horror almost inconceivable.”

His book became a best seller of the time, and played a huge role in highlighting the barbarities of the slave trade.

The slave trade has a depressing relevance nowadays, as the Deputy Prime Minister rightly pointed out. He quoted the words of Wilberforce in 1789, when he said that

“we cannot plead ignorance. We cannot evade it.”

Sadly, the same is true today. Slavery is out of sight for most people, as it was 200 years ago, but the world faces a parallel challenge nevertheless: to confront a ruthless industry that exploits vulnerable people for financial gain. Just as the baton was passed from the abolitionists to other Parliaments and nations around the world, who followed suit in outlawing slavery, so now it rests with the Governments and Parliaments of our time to deal with modern slavery, which today reaches across every continent and culture, profiting from a range of industries in agriculture, textiles, construction, mining, domestic services and prostitution, to name but a few.

Human trafficking, the most talked about manifestation of modern slavery, is the medium by which that age-old practice permeates even the life of modern-day Britain, as the Deputy Prime Minister said. It exists very much as a product of the 21st century and operates in loose global networks, lurking among the unprecedented movements of people, information and capital that characterise today’s global economy and which help mask illegal practices. Human trafficking works best for its instigators across national boundaries, exploiting cultural, social and linguistic differences to isolate individuals and allow criminals to exercise complete control. Recruitment companies or trusted acquaintances offering work and hope for a better future, bogus marriage agencies and gangs targeting lone travellers as they enter new countries are just a few examples of how vulnerable people can be caught in the human trafficking trap. There are of course more barbaric methods: intimidation, threats to families and psychological abuse, followed by violence of a quite unimaginable kind.

The problem is growing locally and internationally. It has many links with other criminal operations, such as money laundering, drug smuggling and document forgery. In scale, it rivals and surpasses other illicit trades, equalling the illegal arms industry and trailing only narcotics in size. According to some estimates it generates nearly $10 billion a year in revenue, which is a staggering figure to have to put on a market dedicated to the buying and selling of human beings. In terms of people, it is estimated that between 600,000 and 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime no country in the world is immune to the problem, whether as a country of origin, destination or transit.

It is important that we in Britain wake up to the gravity of the situation on our own doorstep. A fortnight ago, an official at the Lithuanian Ministry of Information declared that Britain is the No. 1 destination for gangs smuggling sex slaves from countries such as his own. Last year, when our police conducted a four-month operation to tackle sex trafficking, they rescued 84 women—a small number in the scheme of things, but the list of their countries of origin tells its own sorry tale of the trail of misery. Those 84 women came from Albania, Brazil, China, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, India, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Latvia, Lithuania, Malaysia, Namibia, Poland, Rwanda, Russia, Slovakia and Thailand.

To combat human slavery in the world, in particular the international markets of human traffickers, we must seek to wipe out the economic profits available to criminal gangs from their operations, reducing the market size itself and by implication, we hope, the suffering caused. That can be achieved by a concerted and determined effort to disrupt the forces of demand and supply. Supply-side measures should be aimed at increasing the risks of capture, while simultaneously empowering vulnerable individuals through education and the increased provision of assistance, advice and protection.

As long as the demand—or the end use—remains, cold-blooded people will always find unscrupulous ways to profit from the trade in illegal goods, be they arms, narcotics or, in this case, slave labour. Thus the only way truly to end the modern slave trade will be to wipe out the demand. In parallels with the 18th-century sugar boycott, consumer groups can voice their abhorrence at slavery by purchasing certified fair trade goods such as tea, coffee, clothing and other consumables. A greater focus on educating the public is required, using innovative approaches such as the “truth isn’t sexy” campaign, which uses beer-mat messages to alert young people to the realities of sex trafficking, and which will have its cross-party launch later this evening. As traffickers have now infiltrated a range of British towns, cities and the countryside, it is impossible to overstate the importance of bringing awareness to the consumers, businesses and communities in those places where the victims are forced to labour.

The whole House is fascinated by my right hon. Friend’s exposition. Will he comment on the fact that, in spite of all that he is saying, only 30 traffickers have been charged and put in prison? In spite of education, unless we make sure that our police forces apprehend people and our immigration officers stop the gangs coming into this country, the trade will continue because the demand will continue.

I agree. I will conclude my speech soon, but I want to touch on that point. Along with all Members of the House, I am delighted that the Government have announced their intention to sign the Council of Europe’s convention on action against trafficking in human beings. The Deputy Prime Minister referred to the Home Secretary’s signing it on Friday. It allows victims a 30-day reflection period—something for which the Opposition called. We now await the detailed implementation programme, which the Deputy Prime Minister also said would be forthcoming.

The Government will shortly publish their national action plan on human trafficking. We look forward to reading the proposals. I hope that the Government will take heed of the recommendations set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), the shadow Home Secretary. That touches on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) a moment ago: certain actions affecting our own borders need to be taken. We hope that, at all ports of entry, our immigration officials will be permitted to conduct separate interviews for women and children travelling alone with an adult who is not a parent, guardian or husband; that co-ordination will be strengthened between relevant Departments and the Serious Organised Crime Agency in order to guarantee a coherent approach; that the Government will ensure that every police force and local authority has a strategy for dealing with suspected victims of trafficking; and that victim protection will be increased by setting up a dedicated helpline for those who have been trafficked. I hope, but I am not sure, that the Government will propose something that we have proposed for a long time: a UK border police force with specialist expertise to intercept traffickers and victims.

Speaking as shadow Foreign Secretary, I would like to see an improved and strengthened international effort to tackle human trafficking. The United States, through the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, has elevated this issue in importance. Among other endeavours, it now produces on an annual basis an influential report on trafficking in persons. Other countries, including our own, should act with the same levels of commitment. The international community should work together to identify the countries that are the most vulnerable to human trafficking, be they a place of origin, transit or destination, and provide the assistance and encouragement needed, with prevention, law enforcement and victim protection where appropriate. Diplomatic channels should be used to put pressure on countries that ignore the problem. In extreme cases where co-operation is not forthcoming and no measurable improvement is made, assistance in non-humanitarian or non-trade-related areas could be withheld as a last resort. Our embassies and consulates should also take on a more active role, raising awareness through education and information programmes.

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is not aware of some of the actions that our embassies and consulates are taking in places such as Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Vietnam and Cambodia, where, because of the chaotic backgrounds of the people in those countries, it is almost impossible to have birth documents, particularly for children? They are introducing fingerprinting biometrics and there has been an anecdotal reduction in the number of children applying for visas from those countries for entry into this country.

The hon. Lady is quite right to point that out and I am not arguing in any way that nothing has been done about these things. We agree with the Government in their intentions and in everything that they have announced so far. I am simply arguing that an intensified international effort will be required from this country and other countries if we are to deal with a problem on this enormous scale.

To conclude, there are a number of principled individuals, just as in the early 19th century, who have set out to tackle modern-day slavery. They include people such as Sister Ann Theresa, a Catholic nun who established an underground network of safe houses throughout the UK for the victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, and journalists who have investigated the horrors of human trafficking at first hand, thus bringing the reality of the crime to the mainstream media, such as Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times. There are also campaigns such as Stop the Traffik, a global coalition of charities, schools, community groups, businesses, faith groups and clubs that has taken its inspiration directly from the work of the early abolitionists of 200 years ago and demonstrated a similar zeal and commitment. All these groups and individuals are leading the way, but we will start to challenge the traffickers’ dominance only when we secure the support of Governments throughout the world, voluntary organisations and the public at large. Once public opinion is harnessed, it can be as powerful a force as that demonstrated 200 years ago. We must continue to bring this matter to the attention of all.

I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister and the Government on all the arrangements that they have made for the bicentenary and its commemoration. Unless we bring this matter to the attention of all, the quiet and painful suffering of thousands of men, women and children in our cities and suburbs will continue as a human tragedy in our midst. There would be no more fitting way to mark the bicentenary than by renewing the abolitionists’ commitment to tackle the slave trade by practical action. In 1807, the House of Commons arrived rather late in offering to put the full power of the state behind the abolition movement. We in this Parliament, in modern times, must ensure that we bring all our collective political will to this struggle, thus helping to foster the involvement and education of our society to extinguish, in the words of Wilberforce,

“every trace of this bloody traffic”.

The Government are to be congratulated on the arrangements that they have made to celebrate the bicentenary. This was, after all, the largest forced migration in human history. Not even the visionary Wilberforce could have foreseen that a great-great granddaughter of slaves would take part in this debate, 200 years later, on equal terms with other Members, some of whom might be able to trace their ancestry back to slave holders.

The slave trade reshaped Britain, the Americas and the Caribbean, and Britain was involved in it for more than 300 years. I want to make the House think for a few minutes about the brutality of the Atlantic slave trade because it is easy, as we celebrate its abolition, to gloss over its sheer violence, darkness and shame.

The slave trade happened in collusion with some Africans in the interior. The first stage of the slave trade supply chain was the collection of slaves from interior Africa. They were tied into columns, loaded with 40 or 50-lb stones to make it harder for them to escape and marched hundreds of miles to the sea. Some came by canoe to the slave ports. They were tied up in canoes and lay in water for days in the bottom of boats with their faces baked by the sun. Like my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, I have visited one of the slave ports: Elmina Castle in Ghana. When the slaves reached the slave ports, they were put into stockades, sometimes by the thousand. At that point, about 20 per cent. of them died. They were then packed into galleys on ships where they lay side by side in spaces measuring 5 ft by 3 ft. Over the course of the slave trade, at least 450,000 black Africans died as a consequence of the Atlantic passage alone. They were packed in galleys and lay in their own urine and faeces during the weeks that it took to cross the Atlantic. They were sometimes released once a day, but sometimes not at all.

When the ship reached harbour, the slaves were brought out on deck, where they were inspected and handled like animals. Many slaves—one in 10, I believe—died within a year of landing in the Americas or the Caribbean. At the height of the Atlantic slave trade, the average life expectancy of a slave in the West Indies was seven years. In north America, it was reckoned at one point that a profit could be made if a slave was worked to death in four years.

Some of the accounts of the slave plantations in the West Indies and slavery in north America have the power to shock even today, given the brutality with which the slaves were treated as they were worked to death over seven or four years. I sometimes wonder whether the extraordinary brutality of the slave plantation experience in the West Indies marks Caribbean life today.

I am a tremendous admirer and lover of my parents’ country of Jamaica, but it has the highest murder rate in the world. If we try to trace the roots of brutalisation and read accounts of what happened to those generations of slaves in the West Indies, there may yet be a link.

Does my hon. Friend agree that the very observation that she makes about Jamaica may also be an explanation for some of the brutality that we see in some of the African nations today?

I do not want to stretch the thought too far; I just put it to the House that if we read the accounts not just of the work that slaves did, but of the extraordinary brutality of the punishments and the torture that they had to endure and of a life where, at the height of the slave trade, the only people a slave was legitimately allowed to love were the children of the slave master, we have to say that 200 years later, that sort of experience must have affected the societies that we see around the Caribbean today.

In the historical context of the issues that she is dealing with, does the hon. Lady also recognise, as I did in Zanzibar some years ago, that there was also an extremely venal Arab slave trading operation, which also perhaps forms part of the general framework and mosaic?

There is no doubt that both Africans and Arabs were involved in the slave trade, but I am going to move on and say that it was not Africans and Arabs who made massive fortunes or who founded an industrial revolution out of the slave trade. The slave trade was brutalising both to the slave and the slave holder, and I want to touch on that point before closing my remarks this afternoon.

As well as the sheer brutality and cruelty of the Atlantic slave trade, which lasted more than 300 years, it is important to stress how much it was part and parcel of British economic life for more than 300 years. The three great slave-holding ports were Bristol, Liverpool and London. Between 1630 and 1807, when the slave trade was abolished, 2.5 million Africans were bought and sold by Bristol slave merchants. Many of the wonderful houses, buildings and monuments that can be seen in Bristol today were built from the profits of the slave trade. As a man called Roger North, an attorney-general under James I, said of Bristol in the 17th century:

“All men that are dealers, even in shop trades, launch into adventures by sea, chiefly to the West Indian plantations and Spain. A poor shopkeeper that sells candles will have a bale of stockings, a piece of stuff for Nevis and Virginia and rather than sail, they trade in men.”

The splendours and the beauty of a city like Bristol were built on the trade in men.

Liverpool was another great slave port. By the 1780s, two fifths of British slave ships were built in Liverpool. It became the largest slave ship construction site in Europe, squeezing Bristol out in the league table of slave trading ports. Huge fortunes were made from the slave trade by banks and manufacturers. To provide a few examples, there were the Heywood brothers, Arthur and Benjamin, who made their fortune in the slave trade. Arthur Heywood went on to found a bank, which became the bank of Liverpool, then Martin’s bank and eventually Barclays bank. Thomas Leyland, another huge slave trader from Liverpool, served four terms as the city’s mayor. He set up Leyland’s bank, which became Bullins bank and eventually the Midland bank. Many mayors and MPs in Liverpool were slave traders, including the Gladstones. John Gladstone was a sugar planter in Guyana, who wrote a pro-slaver column in the Liverpool Mercury and his son, of course, went on to grace this House as William Gladstone.

In London, my city, people sometimes minimise or discount its involvement in the slave trade, but it was involved in it for longer and deeper than any other part of the British Isles. In the years before 1698, the Royal African Company shipped 100,000 Africans to the colonies. Fifteen Lord Mayors, 25 sheriffs and 38 aldermen were shareholders in that company. The South Sea Company traded in slaves with South America. One of the many people who made fortunes from the company before the South Sea bubble burst was Thomas Guy, a bookseller, who used his fortune to found Guy’s hospital. Barings merchant bank based its profits on the long-term procedures that it developed to finance the slave trade.

In 1766, it was estimated that 40 Members of Parliament were making their money from West Indian plantations. William Beckford, MP, owned 22,000 acres in Jamaica; his two brothers and his sons were also Members of Parliament. The Bishops of London were major slaveholders in Barbados. Another major slaveholder was Humphry Morice MP, Governor of the Bank of England from 1727.

My point is that the slave trade was not an aberration until, kindly, people woke up and realised that it was wrong. The slave trade was part and parcel of British economic and political life for more than 300 years. I have mentioned the major ports—Liverpool, Bristol, London and Glasgow—but small ports around the country did a little slave trading too: Barnstaple, Bideford, Dartmouth, Exeter, Plymouth, Poole, Portsmouth and Whitehaven. We are not talking about an aberration that occurred on the fringes of British society; we are talking about something that was part and parcel of it for 300 years.

My hon. Friend speaks of a 300-year legacy. Between 1837 and 1918, half a million Indian indentured labourers went to the Caribbean, particularly Trinidad and Guyana. Could that not be classed as an extension of the barbarism that led to profiteering in the City of London and elsewhere?

The history of Indian indentured labour is not as well known as it should be, but those labourers were certainly in a position of quasi-slavery. In fact, they were brought in to take over from slaves who would no longer do the work and ran up into the hills, where my family come from, to survive on subsistence agriculture.

We come now to the process by which the slave trade was abolished. I do not want to take anything away from William Wilberforce, but the abolition of the slave trade, like any great social movement, was not a purely parliamentary process. The slave revolts, which happened all over the Caribbean, played their part in 1790. Haiti was the first country to abolish slavery, following a revolution under the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture. There were rebellions in Grenada, Dominica, St Vincent, Tobago and Barbados, and finally, in 1831, there was a massive slave revolt in Jamaica led by Sam Sharpe.

Many historians feel that the reparations made to the French, amounting to the equivalent of about £10.5 million today, contributed significantly to Haiti’s status as one of the poorest nations in the western hemisphere. Does my hon. Friend agree?

That is an important point.

In the Empire, in the slave-trading territories themselves, slaves were in revolt. Here in Britain, in an era without television or picture magazines, the testimony of former slaves such as Equiano and Ignatius Sancho, who toured Britain showing their shackles, exemplified the horror of slavery, and its importance cannot be overestimated. Again, I do not wish to take anything away from Wilberforce, but it would do a disservice to the British people to understate the extent to which not just parliamentary leadership, but a massive popular agitation created the conditions for the abolition of slavery. In 1792, Parliament received 500 anti-slavery petitions; by 1830, it had received 5,000. Between 1826 and 1832, the House of Lords received 3,500. In an era when people did not have the vote, that was the only way in which they could make politicians aware of what they felt.

Nowadays, humanitarian liberal issues are sometimes derided as issues for the chattering classes and the London intelligentsia, but the remarkable thing about the agitation against slavery was that it covered all parts of the country. In 1789, the Leeds Intelligencer, a newspaper, reported a collection of £18—it does not sound much, but it was a huge amount in those days—in support of the campaign against slavery. It was collected by farmers in Yorkshire who, as the Leeds Intelligencer put it, had been

“informed of the injustice and inhumanity of the slave trade by pamphlets”.

Reading about the popular agitation, it is remarkable that it involved ordinary people from all corners of the country. Once they learned the facts, they rose up against slavery, signed petitions and supported people such as Wilberforce. There was no self-interest involved; they were just genuinely moved by the inhumanity of a barbaric trade. In recent years, in the Make Poverty History campaign, ordinary and church people were swept up in the campaign against poverty in Africa, and in many ways, the anti-slavery agitation was the Make Poverty History campaign of its day.

There were, of course, also the abolitionists—the lawyers and campaigners here in London. There was Granville Sharp, Lord Mansfield and his very important finding in the Somerset case, Thomas Clarkson, and William Wilberforce with his 20-year campaign. Of course, we are commemorating the abolition of the slave trade, but slavery itself was not finally abolished until 1833. This House debates modern-day slavery and modern-day forced labour, which are terrible things, and we need to take action in the spirit of Wilberforce and others.

If we were to draw a lesson from the abolition of the slave trade, it would be this: like all great popular movements, it did not start in Parliament, although, in a sense, it ended in Parliament. It is a credit to ordinary, British people across the country that they were prepared to rise up against slavery. It was, in its origins, a popular agitation, although it was led by Quakers, evangelists, and religious people. Abolition was essentially due to popular agitation, as well as a parliamentary Act. Contemplation of the brutality of the slave trade ought to remind the House of what happens when we dehumanise people and say that they are not human beings. When we read about how slaves were treated in the middle passage, on the plantations, and even by their owners in London, we are shocked, but the people involved at the time were not shocked, because they did not see the slaves as human beings. Indeed, one of the achievements of the religious campaigners against slavery—the Quakers and so on—was that they stressed the essential humanity of slaves.

The warning to us, 200 years later, is about what can happen when we dehumanise people and say, “They are not like me; they are not my friends or my family. They are somehow less than human.” Occasionally, when I hear some of the rhetoric in our popular press about people who have been trafficked, economic migrants and asylum seekers, I think that people would do well to remember that if we consistently and systematically dehumanise a group of people, society and Parliament become capable of acts against them that we may look back on in shame years later.

The abolition of the slave trade is an example of what popular agitation can achieve. These days, people are deeply cynical about politicians, although they all have the vote. They say, “If voting changed anything, they would have abolished it,” or “These politicians are all the same—nothing changes,” but the abolition of the slave trade in an era with no television, e-mail, or text messages, and no popular franchise, is an example of what popular agitation, with the right parliamentary leadership, can achieve.

Finally, the abolition of the slave trade speaks to us down the centuries, telling us that in the end, evil does not endure. I am proud to have been able to speak in this debate, and I applaud the Government for the action that they have taken to celebrate this important bicentenary, but there are lessons to learn in this day and age. If my slave ancestors could look down from the Gallery and hear this debate, they would be happy and proud.

I, too, congratulate the Government on the way in which they have led the commemoration, and I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister directly on the tone and content of his speech, as well as the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). My role is partly to shadow the Deputy Prime Minister, and I am the third Yorkshireman in our Front-Bench group. I was brought up by the Quakers, so I was immersed at an early age in the arguments that we have heard today.

Essentially, I should like to build on the arguments of the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) who, in a powerful and effective contribution, said many of the things that I had planned to say. The commemoration is important, because it provides an opportunity, which we must not miss, to understand British history properly. There is a comforting view of the history of the slave trade—I suspect that most people in the country subscribe to it to some extent—that goes roughly as follows: of course, the slave trade was a terrible episode, but it was a long time ago. Many countries were involved and Britain was no worse than anywhere else. Slavery was at the periphery of our society, but it was all redeemed by the abolitionist movement, so we should not feel too badly about it.

That view of history is simply wrong, for the reasons given by the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington. Several points that she made should be emphasised. First, slavery was not peripheral: it was at the heart of the British economy for well over a century, as the great historian, Eric Williams, who subsequently became Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, described in detail. He was the first person to analyse the economics of the slave trade and the triangular movement between west Africa, Europe and the Caribbean, showing how that led to the accumulation of capital, which formed the basis of investment in early industrialisation. The slave trade was, as the hon. Lady eloquently said, at the centre, not at the periphery of the British economy. It was something in which all parts of British society were implicated—it was not just a few roughneck captains and the odd aristocrat who had plantations in the Caribbean—and it was the basis of the prosperity of the Church and, one should add, of the royal family. The hon. Lady mentioned Members of Parliament, but she understated her case, because in 1720, it was recorded that 420—not 40—Members of the House of Commons invested in the South Sea company, which was the main financial vehicle for investment in the slave trade.

As the hon. Lady said—and this is important—there was not a wonderful moment of enlightenment when Britain was suddenly converted to the abolition of slavery. Tellingly, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks made reference—and he has written brilliantly on the subject—to the first and greatest Prime Minister in the Conservative tradition, William Pitt. May I allude to perhaps the greatest Prime Minister in the Liberal tradition—W. E. Gladstone, behind whom there is a rather unfortunate history that is not widely known? It is not just that he entered the House as a Tory—I do not think that that meant a great deal in those days—but that his maiden speech was a passionate defence of slavery. He made that speech 25 years after the abolition of the slave trade, because his family owned plantations and he believed that he should justify that practice. That is how he began his political life—it was not just a personal idiosyncrasy but a reflection of the view among much of the British establishment that although the slave trade was sordid, we had got rid of it, and there was nothing inherently wrong in owning slaves and profiting from them.

It therefore took a great deal of time finally to eradicate slavery. My final point about its history was made eloquently by the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington. It was not just liberal white abolitionists who were involved in the movement against the slave trade, as black slaves contributed enormously to their own emancipation. There were slave uprisings, and freed black slaves in Britain such as Equiano agitated and contributed to the movement. The hon. Lady missed one small detail in the story, as a key factor that provoked the uprisings in the Caribbean was the French revolution. It is often forgotten that some of the French revolutionaries were black and, for the first time, the French revolution promoted the concept that all men—women were not included at that time—were equal, which was a devastating concept to unleash on a slave society. It was only when Napoleon—who, among his less attractive attributes, was a virulent racist—re-imposed authority that the slave uprisings were finally brought under control. That was a key stage, and it was the black revolutionaries who did much to create the climate of opinion leading to abolition.

The hon. Gentleman rightly paid tribute to Eric Williams’s work as an historian. Will he join me in paying tribute to that very great historian, CLR James, who in 1938 wrote the famous book about the slave uprising in Haiti called, appropriately, “The Black Jacobins”?

Yes, indeed. I am less familiar with that work than with Eric Williams’s book, but the hon. Gentleman is right, and there were many others.

There is one aspect of the history that has not yet been touched on, but with which I have been confronted several times in discussions on the subject: whether, as a society, we should in some sense apologise—that is the word that is usually used—for what happened 200 or 300 years ago. The obvious response, which is the one that I tend to give, is that, put in a very crude way, that is not a helpful suggestion because clearly, in any sensible ethical system, one cannot apologise for things that happened 10 generations ago. Equally, the case is often put by groups of Nigerians who have a much wider agenda and who are demanding money.

None the less, there is a deeper point here. We must acknowledge in some form that modern British society owes much of its prosperity and many of its institutions to what happened all those years ago. The way the Prime Minister captured it in his statement earlier this year was about right. A formal apology of the type that is often sought is not quite right, but we have to go a long way to acknowledge that the slave trade was not some distant event from which we are entirely disconnected.

The best way that we can honour the past and pay reparations to it, if that is what is sought, is by ensuring that contemporary slavery is properly and decisively dealt with. Some facts and figures have been cited, but I am concerned that we may be understating the magnitude of it. The United Nations agencies that are responsible have identified modern slavery as being worth roughly $30 to 40 billion. It is the third largest source of illegal income, after drugs and illegal armaments transactions. There are probably about 27 million people who are directly involved in slavery in quite a narrowly defined sense. I exclude child labourers and others, but there are probably 27 to 30 million people who are employed in slave conditions, many, but not all, of them in the Indian subcontinent in bonded labour-type arrangements.

The most shocking fact that I uncovered when I was preparing for the debate is what is happening in the economics of the slave trade, which the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks touched on with reference to the forces of supply and demand. The key point that emerged was that the price of slaves has collapsed, in the same way as the price of drugs has collapsed. Some economic historians have established that throughout history, going back centuries, if not thousands of years, it is possible to put a price on slaves. It sounds an appallingly impersonal thing to do, but in the interests of objectivity one has to try to do it.

Economic historians have estimated that typically, at current prices, slaves were worth the equivalent of £10,000. Of course, that varied a great deal, but it explains why slaves were valuable and why people traded in them. What has happened is that the price has collapsed to about £100 today. The reason is that millions of people who were engaged in subsistence living, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, have suddenly entered the modern economy and are freely available in vast supply. The result is the phenomenon to which the Deputy Prime Minister alluded when he cited the case of the British traffickers who have been dealing in people. The figures that he gave were between £2,000 and £10,000, I think. Traffickers can acquire people who are equivalent to slaves for £100 in the countries of origin. There is enormous scope for mark-ups; that is what is driving the trade and why it is expanding so virulently.

The next question is what we do about it. Many of the arguments have already been touched on. As the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks suggested, it is partly about border protection and controls. That is one dimension, but the other is that of ensuring that trafficked people who are intercepted are properly protected. For the past few years, Liberal Democrats have been pursuing the issue of the signing and ratification of the European Council resolution on this matter, which provides an extra degree of protection for trafficked people. We know that the Government have reservations about that, notably on the 90-day reflection period, but I wonder whether Ministers could summarise in the wind-ups where we currently stand with this argument. Our belief, looking at the experiences of countries such as Italy which provide that degree of protection, is that it has not acted as a pull factor in the way that the Government feared. In fact, the Italians have been able to make 100 times as many prosecutions of traffickers on the basis of the laws that they employ.

I turn finally to a point that has not yet been made, although the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington hinted at it in her peroration—that is, whether we sufficiently acknowledge the role of the black community in Britain and the extent to which, in a country that once had slavery, we now fully accept our own black citizens as complete equals and accept them with dignity. It is a very mixed story. Over my lifetime, we have moved away from open and explicit racial discrimination, which was common and openly advertised. We do not have ghetto-style segregation, as in the United States. We have social trends such as very high levels of intermarriage between white and black people, which indicates at least a degree of optimism about the future.

There is, however, a negative side that we must be open and honest about. Despite successes in many activities, there are still serious problems with discrimination. For example, the Metropolitan police have tried harder than most institutions to get rid of racism, but over the past few days Ali Dizaei’s book has pointed out that many of the practices of the past still persist. In the past few weeks, we have seen a report showing how entrenched the differences are in educational performance. Ever since I came into the House, I have taken a personal interest in young offenders, and I go regularly to Feltham to pursue the issues there. The minute one goes into the place, it is very striking that 65 per cent. of all the prisoners are from ethnic minorities, and the vast majority are black. Clearly, something has gone fundamentally wrong with the way in which black youth is being dealt with in British society that perpetuates this disadvantage.

Although I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington that it is a source of pride that we are dealing with this issue and doing so in such an adult way, we still have to address long-term legacies that are embedded in the form of discriminatory treatment; that is why there is absolutely no room for complacency.

It is a pleasure to be able to take part in this debate, which I congratulate the Government on holding. I particularly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) on an absolutely brilliant speech that brought home to everyone in the House—and, I hope, in wider British society—not only the whole significance of the defeat of the slave trade 200 years ago but the existence of the prejudices that allowed it to develop and to continue. She put the case incredibly well, and I congratulate her on that.

On 23 May, an exhibition will open in Westminster Hall called “The British Slave Trade: Abolition, Parliament and People”; it has been my pleasure to sit on the committee that has been organising it. It tries to emphasise not only the importance of what happened in Parliament but the influences that came from outside Parliament to make it happen in the way that the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) very adequately pointed out in his speech.

My hon. Friend will be aware that, for the first time in our history, the exhibition will have a writer in residence working with the schools on the displays. One of the schools chosen is Burntwood girls school in Tooting. I am sure that he will be appealing to Members to go along to the exhibition and watch these wonderful children, all of whom are Tooting girls, demonstrating our pride in the abolition of this trade 200 years ago.

I absolutely agree, and as I was on the committee that asked the school to take part, I duly congratulate myself on that. It was indeed a splendid choice, and I hope that every Member will come along to the exhibition.

Many congratulations are due to Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey, who has chaired the committee and put a huge amount of effort into ensuring that the exhibition is a success. One of the exhibits, loaned from the museum in Wisbech, is Thomas Clarkson’s box. This was the famous box that he used to take around the country, in which he carried the instruments of torture—the manacles and all the other horrible things—that were used in slavery, and the descriptions of the slave ships and the ways in which people died as a result of the trade. We owe a debt of gratitude to the Wisbech museum for loaning us that equipment and for its help and support.

Baroness Howells brought along to the committee meeting earlier today one of the neck irons that had been put around the necks of African slaves when they were captured and taken to the ports. They were tight pieces of iron that were effectively welded around the necks of human beings in order to chain them together to take them off to a destination unknown to them. That is what slavery was about; it illustrates the brutality involved in the slave trade.

We would do well to ensure that, this year of all years, all the children in schools in this country and around the world begin to understand what the slave trade meant—the brutality and the horror of it, as well as the bravery of those who campaigned against it, and the even greater bravery of those who took part in the slave rebellions in Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean. As the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks pointed out, their names were not recorded in most cases. They led apparently useless rebellions, but word got through and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said, evil was eventually outed and defeated. However, it took a very long time to do so.

Slavery was not a neutral occupation. As my hon. Friend pointed out, Members of Parliament were deeply involved in the slave trade. It was a central core of British life. We have only to look at the names of the buildings and roads in Bristol, Liverpool and London. In Bristol, we find Colston hall, named after a great slave owner, and Whiteladies road, where white ladies went to buy black boys as their slaves. That was all part of British life, and defeating it was a great achievement. The profits from the slave trade were astronomical. One of the most formative books that I have ever read is the wonderful work by the late Dr. Eric Williams, “Capitalism and Slavery”, which I think was his PhD thesis when he was at the London School of Economics. In it, he describes the riches that the City of London and other places made from the slave trade.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right about Edward Colston, who was notorious in Bristol as someone who earned a great deal of his wealth from the slave trade. A number of places in the city are indeed named after him. There is, however, a lot of mythology surrounding Whiteladies road and Blackboy hill. There is no evidence whatever that they were in any way linked to the slave trade.

There is no evidence to the contrary, either. A couple of weeks ago, I was at an interesting meeting to commemorate the abolition of the slave trade, and I had a long discussion about this with some extremely learned people. Gus John and Alex Pascall both assured me that Whiteladies road had that connotation. We should think about these things quite carefully, and about the history of the slave trade and what it meant to so many people.

I was talking about the amounts of money made from the slave trade by some of the richest people in Britain. For example, Sir Francis Baring was a Member of Parliament for 18 years and died leaving a legacy of £1 million, which was one heck of a lot of money in the 18th century. William Beckford became the first English millionaire MP. I think that there might be quite a few millionaires in the Chamber, or at least in this building, at the moment, but I am not one of them—[Hon. Members: “That is a shame.”] No, it is not a shame. I am very happy not to be rich. If we look at the planters who made money from the West Indian plantations, particularly in Jamaica, we see that the Beckford family included several Members of Parliament.

Those were the forces that Wilberforce, Clarkson and others were up against in their campaign for the abolition of the slave trade. Interestingly, however, their involvement in that campaign did not have much direct connection with the slave uprisings going on at the same time. They saw their campaign as a campaign in Britain. At the same time as a high moral stance was being taken by Britain against the slave trade, the slave uprisings taking place all over the Caribbean and the Americas—partly in response to the French revolution but also in response to other factors—were being brutally put down by the British Army, while the British Navy was stopping the slave trade taking place on the high seas. One might say that a few double standards were in operation.

I want to quote from “The Abolition of Slavery” by Richard Hart, an old friend of mine who has spent his life campaigning against racism and the slave trade. He describes the emancipation rebellion in western Jamaica, and the way in which it was put down. He writes, of the first week in 1832, that

“201 rebels were reported killed in action. Approximately 750 slaves and 14 free persons were convicted of acts of rebellion by courts martial and in the courts. Most of those placed on trial were sentenced to death. Others were given savage sentences of from 200 to 500 lashes of the whip, with or without imprisonment. Only 21 appear to have been sentenced to transportation.”

On being sentenced to death, Sharpe, one of the leaders of the rebellion, said,

“I would rather die upon yonder gallows than live in slavery!”

The Maroons who escaped into the Maroon country in Jamaica managed to hold out for a long time. Kofi, their leader, is still venerated in Jamaica, and rightly so. We must remember those aspects of the history of abolition. In passing, let me say that I hope that the Jamaican Government will do their best to protect the wonderful Maroon country of Jamaica from the mining exploitation being visited on it at present, so that succeeding generations can see the place where those who managed to escape slavery lived.

We must also consider what happened once slavery had been abolished. The British commercial interests—largely, they were British commercial interests—were not done. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) pointed out, they transported large numbers of indentured workers from India to Mauritius, South Africa, the Caribbean and many other places. In reality, those indentured workers, though they might have had a supposedly limited time on their indentures, were slaves, just like the slaves who had supposedly been completely freed at that time.

Once we understand the history, we must go forward. Slavery is an inhuman and vile state. Two things are necessary for slavery: one is the ability of people to turn a blind eye to the utmost brutality; the other is the making of huge profits from slavery and the control of other human beings. As many Members have pointed out, the profits made by the sugar industry and many others led to the British banking system, and to Barclays¸ the Midland and many other banks in this country. Such interests are still around, however, and making a great deal of money in different ways from the inhuman treatment of people. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks pointed to the sex slaves of the present, and to the appalling trafficking of human beings. We are also aware of very poor people, mainly from south Asia, being transported, virtually, into economic zones in the Gulf states and other places and forced to work for low wages, with no trade union or other rights. Is such gross exploitation of very poor people so different from slavery in a modern sense?

I was interested in the hon. Gentleman’s point about people turning a blind eye and to financial gain through slavery. Does he feel as uncomfortable as I do when I flick through the back pages of many local and national newspapers and see adverts selling sex? Does he wonder how many of the women involved have been trafficked into this country?

I, too, often wonder that when I see those obscene advertisements around the place. Often, society is keen to condemn with ritualistic moral fervour those who get involved in that trade while ignoring those who make a great deal of money out of it.

In this year of commemorating the abolition of the slave trade, I hope that the Government will welcome and support Amnesty International’s recommendations on the European convention to end trafficking. One is to train officials to identify those who perpetuate human trafficking. Another is to support victims, through accommodation and whatever else is necessary, including allowing them to remain in a country of safety. All hon. Members who represent inner-city areas are familiar with the process whereby people have been trafficked into the country and are living here illegally in a technical sense. They are victims of every kind of exploitation. Is it right that our response is to deport them to places that are probably dangerous for them and likely to expose them to the same treatment in future?

In concluding her speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington spoke about the way in which people are condemned as sub-human. Is the way in which the poorest people in the poorest parts of the world are forced into awful employment practices and those seeking to escape from the dreadful poverty—the origins of which partly lie in the slave trade—in some parts of Africa die on the high seas when trying to seek a place of safety or end up in detention centres all over Europe and the Americas so very different?

We must recognise the wonderful work that was done to end the slave trade 200 years ago and the brave people who stood against it, but acknowledge that we have not yet fully achieved the sort of justice for which they fought. We have a great deal more to do to ensure that our economic relationships with the poorest people in the poorest countries are fair, not exploitative, and that victims of poverty and exploitation are properly treated when they arrive in our country.

My hon. Friend rightly identified the exploitation of labour in developing countries. Does he also agree that one of the main problems and causes of trafficking is massive unemployment in the developing world and that we have failed to tackle that?

Absolutely. For many of the poorest people in the shanty towns of Africa and on the periphery of the cities of Asia—and, indeed, in central and eastern Europe—such exploitation is the only way out. If we want to live in a peaceful world in which the dream of treating human beings as human beings is a reality, we have a great deal to do. Today’s debate has shown what has been achieved but is also a salutary lesson in how much more remains for us all to do.

I do not always agree with much of what the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) says, but I am broadly in sympathy with the points that he made this afternoon.

I should begin, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) did, by declaring an interest. In 1983, when we commemorated the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, as distinct from the slave trade, I published a short life of William Wilberforce, which is now sadly out of print. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks has the field to himself. When I was writing the book, I became increasingly aware of what a great man William Wilberforce was. I do not detract from what people have said about others, including Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp and John Venn. The list is long and many anonymous people made a genuine contribution, especially the slaves themselves. However, William Wilberforce was the parliamentary spearhead and an extraordinary man—unprepossessing in appearance, short of stature, physically frail, yet with an indomitable spirit. He fought tenaciously, suffered many setbacks and, for 20 long years, embodied the abolitionist cause in this place. It is good for us as Members of Parliament to reflect on what a man who never held high office, nor ever aspired to it, could achieve by his persistence and—as Sir Samuel Romilly said at the time when slavery itself was finally abolished—by his sheer goodness.

Wilberforce was not a party man. Some of my colleagues like to claim that he was a Tory, but he was not; he was an independent Member of Parliament. He was a very close friend of William Pitt, but, as I have said, he never aspired to high office. He was the absolute embodiment of what an independent-minded Member of Parliament can be, and his work is an example to us all of what such a man can achieve. I believe that he was the greatest Back Bencher of all time; I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks has come to the same conclusion—we shall have to wait for his book to be published to find that out. Wilberforce is certainly one of the pre-eminent figures in the parliamentary roll of honour, which includes Shaftesbury, Joseph Arch and many others. On almost exactly the same date as the Bill to abolish the slave trade received Royal Assent—25 March—it is good that we are reflecting on what one of our past parliamentary colleagues achieved by his campaign.

Wilberforce was an inspiration. He was the conscience of the nation. He was not, of course, solely concerned with fighting to abolish the slave trade, although that is what he will always be most remembered for. He was a great Christian campaigner who wanted to bring his own particular religious fervour to the attention of people, believing that he had something to transmit to them. He was a great friend of Pitt, as I have said. He was also a great admirer of Fox. Pitt and Fox stood together with him against this ghastly trade. One thing he lamented about Pitt and Fox was that they did not have his religious conviction and fervour.

We already have a fine portrait in the Palace of Westminster, and I would like us to have a special commemoration of William Wilberforce to mark this 200th anniversary. I have on my desk at home a little ashtray—one should not say “ashtray” these days, of course—which was produced by Wedgwood in 1983 and which reproduces the famous image of the black man in chains with the slogan around it:

“Am I not a man and a brother?”

That gave great inspiration to Wilberforce. I would love it to be reproduced as a plaque, and for it to be placed in the Members’ Lobby among the memorials to Prime Ministers, because Wilberforce achieved more than most of the Prime Ministers whom we rightly commemorate and revere in the Central Lobby today. It would be a splendid commemoration of this 200th anniversary if we could do something like that.

Members have referred to the fact that what Wilberforce achieved 200 years ago in spearheading this campaign was not the end; of course it was not. However, we can draw various lessons from it that are highly relevant for today. One of them I would take from the speech that Wilberforce made on 18 May 1789, when he truly launched the parliamentary campaign. Sitting around him were Members who—as earlier speakers have reminded us—derived great wealth from the slave trade. However, Wilberforce in his campaign did not seek to castigate or attack his colleagues. He was prepared to accept that many of them were ignorant of the slave trade and what it all meant. He was prepared to give them that benefit of the doubt and to seek to enlighten them, and all his other colleagues, as to how great an evil this was. We can sometimes learn from that—that we must not attribute the worst motives to everybody. In trying to enrol them in a cause—whatever it may be—we must show them that we will give them the benefit of the doubt, but that, having set the facts before them, we want them to join the campaign.

The campaign that we want everyone to join today is the one referred to by a number of colleagues: the campaign against human trafficking and the exploitation of men and women by others for profit. In those days, some Members of Parliament benefited from the slave trade, but I do not suppose that a single Member of Parliament benefits from these awful things today. However, many of us perhaps turn a blind eye. I was taken by the intervention of the hon. Member for Brent, East (Sarah Teather), who referred to the pages of nauseating advertisements that appear in local papers up and down the country. Would it not be a good thing if we could seek to persuade all those who take those advertisements for profit that they should not be taken? Would not that be one particular and significant step that we could take following today’s debate? If the wares were not advertised, people would not necessarily know about them. We may have to legislate on this, but perhaps we can do it by exhortation and example. I would love to see us set a few specific targets in this bicentenary year, and that is one that we could set.

Of course, we also need to be utterly single-minded in rooting out organised crime. Last year, in my capacity as Chairman of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, I presented in Northern Ireland a report on organised crime in the Province. Particularly apparent, apart from the dimension of paramilitary involvement, was the very important part that human trafficking was playing in the criminal’s apparatus. Human trafficking was joining counterfeiting of goods, smuggling and all the other illicit and revolting things, such as money laundering and fuel laundering. [Interruption.] I am glad that at this point, the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) has entered the Chamber. He played a valuable part in that inquiry, and it was very significant and disturbing that human trafficking was becoming part of organised crime in Northern Ireland, too. It is doing so throughout the United Kingdom, and we must do everything that we can to root this evil out.

One of the worst things that any of us have heard of in recent months is the stories of young girls—they have been referred to today by other speakers—some in their early teens, from eastern Europe and elsewhere who are brought here and used as instruments of pleasure by evil men, sometimes assisted by evil women. That has got to be attacked. So when we mark a very notable occasion—the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade is one—we want to do two things. Yes, we want to give thanks and to take a quiet pride in what was achieved through this place, although not entirely and solely. In her moving speech, the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), made that plain; nevertheless, we can all take pride in what was achieved here, whichever part of the House we sit in and whatever our political or personal background. There is always a time for giving thanks and celebration, but celebration is hollow and giving thanks is barren unless we also rededicate ourselves to attacking the descendent evils of the slave trade and slavery.

Never again will those ships cross the water packed with human cargo, but even as we speak little boats are going into ports on the Mediterranean coast, setting out from Albania and crossing from north Africa, not with people in physical shackles—such as Clarkson took around the country, as the hon. Member for Islington, North reminded us—but shackled in a different way. We have no right to call ourselves a truly civilised society unless we do everything to root out that evil that is still in our midst. I hope therefore that as a result of today’s debate there will be a new dedication throughout the House to attack the descendent evils of slavery and the slave trade that still disfigure society today.

It is difficult to know where to start in this important debate. Listening to some of the historical context that we have heard today made me think about talking about slavery in the modern context, but as a black African woman I should first say that I am angry about not being taught my history in school. It was almost as though black history and the important contribution by African people were deliberately left off the agenda. I ask myself why that was so. Perhaps some answers may emerge in the debate today. March 25 2007 is an important anniversary, but many of those in slavery did not get their freedom until 1838 and, as we have heard today, slavery and discrimination sadly continue to the present day.

I wish to talk about discrimination in education. Bernard Coard’s report in the 1970s, which is still relevant today, described a multitude of factors that combined to depress the achievement of black boys. He identified three factors that caused that. First were low expectations on the part of black boys about their likely performance in a white-controlled system of education. Second came low motivation to succeed academically because black boys felt that the cards were stacked against them. Third came low teacher expectations that affected the amount of effort they expended on black boys and those boys own image of themselves and their abilities. Such discrimination still exists today and that report is still very relevant today. Black students are given harsher reprimands for the same misdemeanours as their white counterparts and, as we talk about the historical context of slavery and its legacy, we must also consider modern education.

Sunday will mark 200 years since the British abolition of the slave trade or, as some call it, BAST. It was an important step but, as we have heard, Britain was just playing catch-up to a growing revolt. Slavery in the British empire came to an end after a rebellion led by a Jamaican slave called Sam Sharpe. He was the Martin Luther King of the 19th century, opting for non-violent passive resistance to slavery. Many other people will not be mentioned today but should be.

As we mark this year, we must think about our legacy as a Government and as British society. It is important that we teach in context what happened so that we may understand the legacy of slavery today. I use legacy as a term to define what has been passed to the present, and those enslaved gave their tomorrows for our todays. All aspects of black history must be mainstreamed into the national curriculum. The Government’s recent announcement that the story of the slave trade would be taught in schools is a small step forward. I am happy that we are having this debate: we must not forget that the British economy was built on the backs of those who suffered in slavery, but I would love an end to be put to Black History Month. I want black history to be amalgamated into the general history of the country, so that it is talked about and celebrated every day.

I would have loved to learn, in my history lessons, about the former slave Olaudah Equiano, who became the slaves first political leader of the 18th century, or about Elijah McCoy, who took out more than 50 patents for his inventions and after whom the term “the real McCoy” is said to have been coined. My constituency of Brent has the largest number of African-Caribbeans in the country, and I am sure that young people there would love to learn about the Jamaican Sam Sharpe, who triggered rebellion among thousands of slaves by telling them that they were free, even when they were not. Again, I am confident that people in my area would be interested to hear about Charlotte Ray, the first black female lawyer and, in 1872, only the third woman ever to be admitted to the Bar. More recently, I am sure that they would be keen to hear about the most honourable Portia Simpson-Miller, who became the first female Prime Minister of Jamaica.

I am confident that, under this Government, positive black history could be taught. After all, we have only ever had three black women MPs, and two of them are in the Chamber this afternoon. Two weeks ago, my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was inducted into the black heroes hall of fame. I applaud her for that, as that is the sort of history that we need to teach. I think that the Government’s personal learning programme will encourage more positive teaching for our black students.

Even so, I am a little worried that black students will not learn all the details of the history of slavery, a problem highlighted by my hon. Friends the Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington and for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn). For instance, the banks were directly linked to the slave trade: Barclays was established by two plantation owners who traded in slaves, and Lloyds began as a centre where runaway slaves were collected before establishing itself in 1692 as a insurance business covering slaves, slave ships and the plantations. Will history courses teach that, or will they concentrate only on the capture of innocent Africans? We must tread very carefully.

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful case about the change needed in respect of teaching black history, but does she agree that the great popular movements of the 20th century that addressed the question of racism—and I am thinking of the movements against apartheid and colonialism, and in support of civil rights—should also be included? Paul Robeson was the international humanitarian figure who embraced all those movements, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister is a great supporter of the need to recognise that great man’s life. If my hon. Friend agrees with me, will she join me in hearing Paul Robeson’s son—the grandson of a slave—speak at Birkbeck college in October?

I thank my hon. Friend, who makes an important point. I have had the pleasure of listening to Paul Robeson II, and I know that he is an amazing speaker and man, and very inspirational. Of course, I shall be happy to take up that offer.

We must teach positive black history in schools. When she winds up the debate, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equality will be able to shed some light on how the positive and powerful teachings of black history will be included in the curriculum.

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important for young black people to learn about the black involvement in this country’s history, and about the reality of the slave trade? Does she accept that they have to understand that they are not merely the passive recipients of charity from the majority community and that they can be the architects of their own fate?

I agree with that wholeheartedly. I cannot stress too much the importance of teaching positive black history. If we do not teach it, we will be enslaving people all over again, a problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington touched on with some eloquence.

Slavery was not just an event—it was a process of destabilising African societies. It produced negative self-image and African deculturalisation, and demonised all things black and all things African. That is what separates the slave trade from modern slavery. Modern slavery does not strip people of their culture and heritage, which is why it is important that black history is taught in schools.

Will my hon. Friend join me in hoping that when the Government reply to the debate, or other debates on this subject, they will propose some changes in the national curriculum, so that our children understand the wider context of world history and colonialism, with rather less of the narrow bands of history that are far too often taught in all our schools, particularly at primary level?

I agree. As I said earlier, I am an angry black woman because I was not taught my history in school. I hope that part of our legacy as a Labour Government will be that we have rectified that situation, so that when there are, as we hope, more black MPs they will be a little less angry.

This is the time to ensure that Africans rise through the ranks and that black people are encouraged. I want young black people to believe that they can achieve; I want them to pick up books, not dangerous weapons. I want them to know that the debt we owe those who gave their tomorrow for our today runs deep. Maya Angelou wrote:

“I am the dream and the hope of the slave”.

We have a huge gap to fill.

We must look to emotional and spiritual reparation to repair minds. We must ensure that all our children know they can achieve great things, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said. It is vital that we continue to strive to tackle modern-day discrimination and slavery in all its forms.

My hon. Friend may be aware that the Mayor of London is working to make 23 August a day when Londoners unite to remember and acknowledge the horrors of the slave trade. Will she work with the Mayor to make sure that the things she is talking about, such as black role models and the black heroes of yesteryear, are commemorated and celebrated on that day?

Absolutely. The African emancipation day is an important date. I shall be working with the Mayor, who has come up with some fantastic recommendations in this bicentenary year. Although some parties have tried to reduce the funding for that day, I am pleased that it will be going ahead and I shall be working closely with the Mayor to make sure that it does so.

The Jamaican poet David Neita said that freedom is a right and not an end in itself. It is not a static process; we need to struggle constantly to extend freedom. Part of our freedom is the teaching of our story. As the late, great Robert Nester Marley said:

“Today they say that we are free

Only to be chained in poverty.

Good God, I think it’s all illiteraci.”

To put those words in a modern context, I welcome the announcement yesterday of an additional £6 million for extra tuition courses and the Chancellor’s £10 million for the “Aimhigher” scheme. Such funding has led to a remarkable 93 per cent. of key stage 4 pupils at Copeland school in Brent achieving five or more good GCSEs. I am very proud of that result at my school. In the UK, we must continue to travel in that direction.

In Africa, we must continue to invest, because the economic exploitation of Africa continued long after slavery ended. The Labour Government have made historic commitments to ending poverty in Africa. After all, we have a huge debt to Africa, although in fact it can never be repaid. Those who doubt it need to be reminded, which is why I have been campaigning in Parliament for an annual remembrance day.

In the Deputy Prime Minister’s opening speech, he said that the debate on slavery had been going on for a long time. Indeed, it has. In 2004, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman) tabled an early-day motion on the subject, yet the Government are still not sure whether we should have a remembrance day. I say yes, we should—[Interruption.] For the record, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister also says yes.

That is a commitment.

I believe that it is. I am sure we can iron out the details and date later—[Interruption.] I must continue, but I am glad that I have that commitment from the Deputy Prime Minister.

A commemoration day would mean that every year Britain could commemorate the heroism of those who struggled against slavery and injustice, whatever their background, and help our children understand its importance and legacy. It would show them that their responsibility in society runs deep and that they come from a seriously powerful race. It would promote all the unsung heroes we shall be unable to mention today—whether scientists, teachers, parents, politicians or preachers—who sacrificed their lives for our survival. It is important that we support each other and work together on that task. I hope we shall do so. I hope, too, that the Government will bring together grassroots organisations, schools and people such as Natasha Beckles from Brent who has produced a fabulous guide for schools, and hold a meeting here in Parliament to discuss appropriate dates, aims and objectives for an emancipation day.

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. As she represents Brent, may I tell her, if she does not know already, that in 1960, before the amalgamation, Willesden council—of which I was then a member—was the first local authority to boycott South African goods? We demonstrated our complete hostility to the apartheid regime.

I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. Brent is the most diverse constituency in the UK.

I want to end my speech by talking about the importance of women. They dominated the campaign to end slavery, which should come as no surprise as it was so well organised. Women had no vote, but they could make their voice heard through the campaign. It was one of the first ways in which they became involved in politics. The abolitionists were pioneers who helped to invent the political campaigning methods we use today. They collected mass petitions, organised hundreds of local societies, created a campaign logo and organised consumer boycotts. They calculated that if 38,000 families stopped using sugar, it would stop the slave trade altogether.

Nanny, a wonderful woman and a leader of the Maroons, was a symbol of unity and strength throughout the 18th century. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said earlier, the Maroons were Africans who fled to the hills in Jamaica—where my parents are from—when the British invaded in 1655. Many were Rastafarians. They lived free and grew their own food, which we would now call organic, so we could say that they invented organic food—Ital food, as we like to say. They were skilled warriors, hunters and home makers. The British could not control or defeat the Maroons, however hard they tried.

The bicentenary is a major opportunity to consider both the legacy of the British slave trade and slavery in our modern society, and to explore the roots of the racism, prejudice and social stereotypes that continue to affect our local and global communities. Our aim should be to remember the slave trade and its cost to human life. We should remember the debt owed to African people and understand the importance of equal opportunity and respect for others. At every stage, we must challenge injustice and cruelty.

I have already mentioned Maya Angelou. I end with her words:

“You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies.

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

This debate pays tribute to a remarkable man. William Wilberforce’s achievements were immense and have been recognised all over the country. However, they are overshadowed by what Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest international human rights organisation, describes as the new form of slavery: human trafficking. I knew little about trafficking a year ago—I thought that it was something to do with Parliament square and the one-way system. I did not know anything about it until I read two sensational articles that appeared in The Sun and The Daily Telegraph, which brought to light the sex trade in Britain. The media have done an important job in exposing the problem. Now we need to focus less on sensationalism and more on what the issue is all about, how it works and how we can do something about it.

The new forms of slavery are different from the forms that were prevalent in the world 250 years ago. They could involve trafficking for sexual purposes, domestic servitude, forced labour or forced marriage, or, as has more recently been discovered, the use of Vietnamese boys in the suburbs—not the inner-city areas—to look after cannabis farms and to water plants. There is confusion about what is trafficking and what is smuggling. Trafficking is about being duped or deceived. Often victims of trafficking are offered what seems to be an appealing opportunity to go abroad. Thousands of girls and boys are driven away by violence, rape and murder in Africa.

I came back from Romania this morning, where I went underground to look at this whole subject and to see what drives women in some of the poorest areas in Romania away from those places. They live in the most squalid, appalling conditions—worse than I ever saw when I was a community worker in east London 40 years ago. I am talking about the kind of squalor that people in this country would not leave their animals in. There are mud floors, concrete walls that have split, rat-infested rooms, no electric lights, no fridges, no water and a lot of drink and drunkenness, which is driving young girls out of their homes into the arms of their lover boys, as they are called. They are then brought to Spain, Italy and the UK. It is an appalling picture. One of our EU countries—I have a lot of affection for Romania and Bulgaria—is a centre for such girls, who see no way out of their lives other than to be trafficked and to come to this country to be used for sex.

Those involved in trafficking are essentially business men, aiming to make profits by offering a product for sale where there is demand for it. People trafficking has grown and the demand is still growing. There seems to be an endless supply. As long as there is poverty and appalling abuse at the other end, girls and boys—Members should not think that it is just girls; it is boys too—will be trafficked through to the western areas.

To deal with this new scourge, a huge range of advisers, consultants, officials, fledgling international organisations and non-governmental organisations have grown up. I went to Vienna last year to a conference. I was the only MP there. There were 450 officials, and I do not think that any of them had ever actually seen a victim. They were most concerned with getting money for research. They were concerned about the legal aspects of whether countries could prosecute, and they loved attending conventions. It was like there was a huge circus-load of people who apparently went round the world attending conventions and making comments. There were always papers being given. Trafficking seems to have produced an awful lot of experts and, although some of them do a lot of good work, few of them are victim-oriented. They are just involved in the organisation and conventions.

The best way to halt the vile trade in people is to make life nasty for the traffickers. I welcome the fact that the action plan is coming out so soon—mind you, it was promised last summer, but it is good that it is coming out later this week. It has to make life nasty for traffickers. If traffickers do not have life made nasty for them, they will go on doing trafficking, because the demand is so great. If we make life nasty for them in this country, we have to persuade our European partners to make life equally nasty for them in their countries, otherwise those involved will just the switch the location of their trafficking. If we can make it nasty enough, they will switch from human trafficking to other forms of crime, but at least we will have got human trafficking off the agenda.

We have to realise that Wilberforce’s achievements have a shadow cast over them, because of these new forces of evil and slavery. I believe the best people to help to stop this new form of slavery are, first, the immigration services, then the police and the victim-based non-governmental organisations and shelters. Although there is plenty of law to shop traffickers, according to a parliamentary question that I asked on 23 October last year, as well as one that I asked on 9 January this year, only 30 traffickers were sentenced last year. I am not making any criticism of the Government at all, but it is an indictment that, in the context of the massive numbers of women involved, the thousands of traffickers, the hundreds of non-governmental agencies and this debate today, only 30 traffickers were sentenced. That requires some comment, or some thinking about. How are we going to improve that situation? There are thousands of traffickers living and working in Britain.

I hope that the Minister for Women and Equality will forgive me if I quote her. On 22 February, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), she said:

“The Government are doing a great deal on trafficking, which is why cross-government work is going on. We have had successful operations in relation to people coming into this country, such as Operation Pentameter. We are leading Europe on providing for victims and ensuring that people are recognised at ports. This must be an international issue and it needs to be dealt with through international action. We are making great progress, and we are recognised as a leader in Europe.”—[Official Report, 22 February 2007; Vol. 457, c. 403.]

I am not quite sure who recognises us as a leader in Europe. How are people going to be recognised at ports? Is this a sort of beauty parade? Will officials say, “There’s another trafficker?” What do they do when they see the traffickers? If traffickers are recognised, what are we going to do with them? They may have served a prison sentence or have a criminal record, but we cannot just send them back if they are from EU countries. I am concerned, because how will immigration officers be able to do anything just because traffickers are recognised? Perhaps the Minister did not fully think through that remark.

How well are immigration officers doing? They are our front-line staff at ports of entry. What information do they receive and from whom, and when they get their information what can they do with it? Can they put somebody who has been convicted of trafficking back on the next plane? Have they got the power to do that? What about the human rights of the person who was guilty of trafficking some way back? Bad track records will not prevent other EU citizens from coming into Britain.

On my recent visit to Europol, in The Hague, it was stressed that there was indifferent communication and that there were different priorities between the 27 EU countries. The information provided by Britain was criticised. I am sure that the Minister will be concerned, as I was, that Europol was not entirely complimentary about the British approach to Europol and to providing information to it. There are 500 or so Europol staff and they are only as good as the questions they ask or the information that they are given. Until there is a minimum common standard in relation to the accuracy of fingerprinting, DNA, and photographic as well as gun profiles, the measures taken will be useless. There are 27 countries with 27 lots of criminals. Unless we get accurate information, people with appalling criminal records are going to come in and out of Britain.

I was particularly concerned about how, as a result of the action plan, criminals from those countries would be apprehended at Heathrow, and about whether they would be sent back, or followed. Are there teams of people in all ports of entry waiting to see who is coming through and do intelligence officers then follow that up?

The answer is that that does not happen. The fact that the convictions of only 30 traffickers have been managed should worry the whole House. If there has been a failure to apprehend the criminal gangs at ports of entry and there is no hope of apprehending victims of trafficking or slave children, what chance do the police have of finding either the victims or the gangs?

Although I have expressed concern about immigration officials, I make no criticism of them at all—they are powerless. The idea that we will stop trafficking through any of the ports of entry is pure moonshine. The gangs and victims are going through passport control and the immigration service, so the police have to chase everything up—when the horse has bolted, bring in the police.

Until the introduction of Operation Pentameter, which has received considerable and well deserved publicity, there was little focus in this country on the new forms of slavery. I pay tribute to Operation Pentameter. Every one of the 55 police forces was involved in the three-month operation during which 84 victims of trafficking were discovered, 12 of whom were minors. However, who are they? Where are they now? Why do we not have a permanent Operation Pentameter? Why is not every policeman trained so that he is aware of, and able to look out for, human trafficking? Should not every police force have a designated unit that focuses on trafficking? Should there not be a national focus under one commander? When the action plan is published, I am hoping to hear that something along those lines will be introduced, but the measure must be permanent. There is no point in having operations that last for three months and are then closed down because they are too expensive or difficult. Once the trafficked people are found, the problem is what to do with them.

One of the ways of getting a better sense of perspective about the scale of the trafficking problem would be to establish an independent national rapporteur or investigation bureau on human trafficking, as is the case in the Netherlands. I had the good fortune to visit that body recently and I was impressed by its independence. It conducts research on human trafficking in the Netherlands, produces statistics and figures and works with the police and Government agencies. The important aspect of the system is that the rapporteur is responsible for reporting on national statistics and emerging issues and the matter is debated annually in Parliament. There are thus actual figures to show what is going on in that country, yet this country’s Government are unable to answer my questions by giving me information because they do not have it. The establishment of such a body would be one way of producing statistics. I am thus sad that the Government have rejected such a proposal.

Where are the results of the Government’s “good practice”, to use the Minister’s words? According to a written answer, the total number of people charged by the Crown Prosecution Service for the offence of human trafficking under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 was 132. However, let me cite further the reply, because it contained some rather interesting figures. I apologise for asking so many questions, but they show up the lack of available information. The reply said that the establishment of the United Kingdom human trafficking centre led to a multi-agency operation

“which aimed to tackle trafficking for sexual exploitation and which led to 234 people being arrested.”—[Official Report, 20 July 2006; Vol. 449, c. 609W.]

However, of those 234 people, only 132 were charged, and we do not know how many were found guilty. After a massive operation and massive cost to the taxpayer, we got no results—[Interruption.] If the Minister thinks that I have got that wrong, I ask her to intervene.

I was merely making the point that when someone is charged, there is a process to go through. Obviously it takes time before court cases come through and there are convictions. If we are not at the end of that process, we are not able to give results.

I quite understand that, but the point is that the numbers are trivial. Only 132 people have been charged with trafficking, yet we believe that tens of thousands of people have been trafficked. The can of worms has barely been opened. I find it difficult to be complacent about the situation and to suggest that the Government have a good track record. I am delighted that they have started to address the problem, but they have only just started. I am worried about the figures. While 132 people were charged, only 30 have been convicted, so we are talking about tiny numbers.

The fact that more people are charged with the trafficking of people under immigration legislation than the Sexual Offences Act is a good illustration that the Government see human trafficking as a problem relating to immigration rather than human rights. In answer to a question that I tabled in June 2006 on child trafficking, the Government said that at least 12 defendants were charged in three separate cases involving female victims of trafficking between the ages of 15 and 18. Ten of them were convicted and received lengthy sentences.

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Does he share my slight puzzlement at the Government’s hesitancy in signing and ratifying the convention? It seems that they are more worried about immigration issues than human rights abuses—the balance is slightly wrong.

The right hon. Gentleman puts that point very well. I do not mind about the signing too much, but I mind about the ratification because, as the Minister will know, 10 countries need to ratify the European convention before it can become effective. Only three countries have ratified to date—

Five.

The number is five now—I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. There are thus another five to go, and we are signing the convention only this weekend. However, I am glad that we are signing it because it is a good step in the right direction.

I do not know whether the House knows that no prosecutions under the trafficking legislation have taken place for cases involving African women or girls.

I pay tribute to the all-party group on trafficking of women and children, which I have the honour of chairing. It has a distinguished group of officers and members, including the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) and my hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara). It is served by the well-known organisation ECPAT UK—End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes—which has done a great service to this country.

The most important point arising from the intervention of the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) is that we must not only sign the convention, but practise and ratify it. I thought that it might be useful to the House if I were to say something about victim support. If the police are able to dig out the traffickers and get enough evidence—

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman relate his remarks a little more directly to the subject under discussion? I hope that he is not going to stray too far on to victim support.

I will obviously follow your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. However, I hope that you will not think it disrespectful of me to say that I am straying no further than either of the Front-Bench speakers. In fact, at least 50 per cent. of hon. Members’ speeches have concentrated on human trafficking and the new forms of slavery. I hope that I will not do anything other than they did. However, I am grateful for your guidance.

I want to talk for a moment about what would happen if the police were able to dig out the traffickers—this is about trafficking and slavery. It is worth mentioning that the real problem is getting enough evidence to pin a conviction on a trafficker. If traffickers were convicted, would they serve their sentence in their country of origin or at a cost to the British taxpayer—would we be expected to foot the bill?

What about the victims of traffickers? Every time that I ask a question about the new forms of human slavery, the anticipated answer is that the POPPY project is dealing with the matter. Let us consider the reality of the POPPY project. It is rightly given tremendous and continuous publicity. Every time a Minister answers a question about this issue from the Dispatch Box, POPPY pops up. I do not want to trivialise POPPY’s achievements, but the project must be viewed in perspective. POPPY has only 25 beds, which are in London alone, and a further 10 emergency beds, if required. I am told that when Operation Pentameter was in force, POPPY’s places were nearly full. However, once Pentameter ceased, the number of referrals fell. When I made an inquiry about four months ago, the number of women in the care of POPPY was down to 16 out of a possible 35.

There are a number of reasons for that. First, one has to be over 18 to go to POPPY; under-18s are turned away. Secondly, under-18s go into local authority care. POPPY deals only with trafficking or slavery for sexual exploitation. Victims of forced labour or domestic servitude or forced marriage are turned away. POPPY provides unconditional support only for a so-called reflection period of four weeks. It works only in London, so there is no equivalent POPPY project for people in Manchester, Birmingham or Sheffield. If I am wrong about that, perhaps the Minister can put me right. It works for a short period of four weeks and if support is to last any longer, the victim has to offer information about their traffickers; otherwise, they are asked to leave. I do not believe that that has been a very successful approach.

Up to 4,000 women a year are trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation. The POPPY project mapping report, “Sex in the City”, shows evidence of off-street prostitution in 22 London boroughs. An estimated 80 per cent. of people working in brothels, saunas and massage parlours are non-British nationals—80 per cent. of prostitutes come from abroad. It is rather like restaurants; people seem to want a choice, whether it be Indian or Chinese. They go for a range of people who have been trafficked into this country.

What happened to the women in the POPPY project? Nobody knows. Have they been sent back home or integrated into this country; and what has happened to the 277 referrals? Nobody knows. I must say that I am increasingly concerned about where all the women have gone to. What about the 3,800 whom POPPY did not deal with? What has happened to them? POPPY says that it is looking after as many people as it possibly can, but the attitude in Britain towards trafficked people is very different from that in Holland or Italy. As Britain is about to sign the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings, should we not be planning a slightly more constructive approach?

The Minister boasts that the POPPY project provides protection and assistance to adult victims, safe accommodation and a range of support services, but I wonder whether the House knows that women in the POPPY project who have entered the UK illegally do not have access to medical care. They are not entitled to any medical care whatever if they are illegal entrants. Many face multiple problems, including physical ones, and sexually transmitted diseases, yet they are not entitled to medical facilities. Does the Minister know that; will she deal with it in her winding-up speech?

Finally, I want to look into child slavery. What did the Deputy Minister for Women and Equality have in mind when she said that we were leading Europe in providing victims of human trafficking with protection, particularly under-aged victims? When she said that, was she aware that 4,885 girls aged between 15 and 19, and 6,170 boys sought asylum in the UK in 2005—about 11,000 children? According to the Home Office website, in 2005, out of 2,835 decisions, 700 were refused. I am not sure what has happened to the other 7,000. The numbers do not add up. No one is sure whether victims of trafficking who are under 18 have right to remain in the UK, or whether some of the thousands of children missing are just shipped out of Britain again. Who is responsible for those children? Who looks after them and who cares for them? Do they have a guardian ad litem? Are they fostered to families who will care for them? Do they go to school?

On 20 December last year, I asked the Home Secretary how many children had been trafficked into the UK, and the answer was that he had no idea. When I asked how many unaccompanied children had come into Britain, he had no idea of that either, so I asked how many had been returned to their country of origin as a result of failed asylum. The answer was again that there was no information, so no one knows what happens when the children reach 18 if they are still in this country. Will failed asylum seekers be sent back to their country of origin?

I would like to offer the hon. Gentleman some reassurance. I received a letter this morning from the director of children’s services in Liverpool, telling me that Liverpool is one of two centres in the UK to take unaccompanied children coming into this country to seek asylum. I was informed that there was a panoply of provision for those children that was equal to anything that we would provide for our own children. The director of children’s services wrote to ask me for further assistance, but he also took the opportunity to outline the Government’s plans for a network of centres throughout the UK for these children in order to ensure that when they arrive they are adequately taken care of and protected.

That is very reassuring, but it cannot be reassuring to the boys who were watering the cannabis plants, because they were illegal immigrants. They were failed asylum seekers and they were not going to be looked after. The problem is that we are talking about 10,000 children who applied for asylum, but the figures do not square up. I am delighted to hear what the hon. Lady says, but the figures do not square with what the Government are producing in relation to where these young people are. The truth is that nobody cares about them because they have no family or friends here. They are victims and it is up to us to ensure that they are protected.

The outcome of the recent ECPAT UK report on missing children worried me. The report highlighted the 80 children known or suspected of being trafficked into the UK for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation and forced marriages, but 48 of them have gone missing. This is a highly recognised and responsible organisation and its report appeared in all the national newspapers for one day, but where have those 48 children gone? We need to do some detective work. I am delighted that some are being looked after, but an awful lot of them are not, and when they go missing they get re-trafficked. I do not believe that we can be recognised as a leader in Europe in this respect.

The Government state that they will do anything to tackle the problem and to prosecute the traffickers, but the public authorities are already failing to protect minors when no one knows where they are. Few traffickers have been apprehended in spite of sensational stories about sex trafficking, and comparatively few women have come forward. The problem is that the full picture is obscured. We do not have a clue what is going on, which is why I have spent the past year trying to find out.

I have visited a safe house outside Rome where I met and talked with girls trafficked into Italy from Romania and Bulgaria, some as young as 10; I have met traffickers in a high-security prison in Bucharest; I have been to Europol and hostels in Holland; and I have spent time in the most deprived cities in Romania. I met some of the top professionals—from police chiefs to mayors—trying to get to grips with the problem, which remains intangible.

What could the Government do? For starters, they could withdraw their reservation in respect of immigration and nationality on the 1989 UN convention on the rights of the child. In an answer to my parliamentary question of 26 February 2007, the Home Secretary stated that the Government believed that without the reservation on the UN protocol, the interpretation of the convention might come into conflict with domestic legislation on migration—but that does not square with signing up to the European convention, whose purpose is to protect children.

What this debate should achieve is the highlighting of the extent of the problem in Britain. What we know about trafficking leads me to believe that we have seen a tip of an iceberg. Although we should certainly congratulate the Government and the Minister for Policing, Security and Community Safety—unfortunately, he has just left the Chamber and did not hear my compliment—who is responsible for trafficking, my conclusion is that there still an immense amount of talk and a large number of meetings, but little to be seen on the ground.

The fact that up to 800.000 people each year are trafficked in one way or another; the fact that Lithuania says that Britain is a No. 1 destination for sex trafficking; the fact that 48 children can go missing in the care of local authorities; the fact that Operation Pentameter found 84 women in three months; the fact that 15-year-olds from Vietnam, who got into Britain illegally, are growing cannabis in the suburbs of our towns; and, finally, the fact that Britain has been unable to mount very many successful prosecutions all highlight the fact that human trafficking is still way ahead of the Government. The traffickers must be splitting their sides with mirth at the pedestrian, clumsy, inflexible and bureaucratic way in which the Government, the police and immigration officers are proceeding. When the Minister publishes his action plan, can we be sure that he will make life as difficult as possible for traffickers and better for victims, and that he will decide how we should respond to the trafficking of children into Britain?

Where are we, 200 years after abolition? We have got rid of the old form of slavery—lifelong deprivation of rights and freedoms—but today we have a new form of slavery that is growing fast. It is related to ever increasing demand from an affluent society that is prepared to buy children for sex, domestic slavery, begging and the growing of cannabis. While society may have outlawed traditional slavery, the new forms of exploitation prey on the most vulnerable, the poorest and the least educated. All the evidence suggests that trafficking in human beings is now more profitable than arms dealing or drug trafficking. It is a criminal abuse by human beings of other human beings. It is an assault, both physical and mental, on those who are least able to care for themselves. If ours is a country that believes in human rights, we should be at the forefront of tackling this issue rather than just talking about it.

I pay tribute to the excellent and powerful speeches made by my hon. Friends the Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and for Brent, South (Ms Butler).

The House has three Hull Members. Each of us is very proud that William Wilberforce is probably the most famous son of the city, and that he played such an important role in the abolition of the slave trade. I was heartened when the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said that Wilberforce was an independent rather than a Tory, because we do not really have Tories in Hull. I also pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), the Deputy Prime Minister, who has played a pivotal role in ensuring that the bicentenary is properly marked and that a range of events throughout the year will record its importance.

Late in 2005, soon after I became a Member of Parliament, I initiated a Westminster Hall debate on the abolition of the slave trade, because I wanted to know how the Government planned to mark this important anniversary. It was an interesting debate, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy) responded. He described the plans for the celebration, and also agreed to visit Hull to see what we planned to do there. He did so in 2006, and I think he was impressed by the range of events that we had planned for 2007.

The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) gave a very full historical account of William Wilberforce and the history of the abolition movement. I shall say a few words about the role of women in the abolition campaign.

It should be borne in mind that there were other Members of Parliament before Wilberforce. Many people forget that we nearly abolished slavery during the English civil war. Another character who presided here for a long time, and who was responsible for stopping the movement towards the abolition of slavery, was Oliver Cromwell. When he became Protector of England he saw the commercial opportunities presented by slavery, and persuaded the House not to abolish it. Many of the early slaves were white, and many were from Ireland.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is another part of the great history that surrounds today’s debate. I am learning an enormous amount that I did not know before.

I want to say a little about the bicentenary celebrations in Hull, and also about the present situation in relation to slavery. First, however, let me say something about William Wilberforce.

Wilberforce was born in 1759, in a house in the high street in Hull. His father died when William was quite young, so he spent much of his early life with his aunt, who was under the influence of John Wesley and the Methodist movement. It is significant that the religious element continued throughout Wilberforce’s life.

At 17 Wilberforce went up to St John’s college, Cambridge. Reading a bit about that time, I noted that he was shocked by his fellow students’ hard drinking. Not much has changed about young people going up to university! He went on to represent the city of Hull as its Member of Parliament, having been elected in 1780 at the tender age of 21. It was a hard-fought contest, and Wilberforce’s election cost the exorbitant sum of £9,000. I found that interesting, especially in the light of Hayden Phillips and our current discussions of how elections are paid for.

When Wilberforce entered the House he supported the Tories, although he was an independent. In 1784 he converted to evangelical Christianity, and joined the “Clapham sect” referred to by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. At that point he decided to follow the social reform agenda in Parliament, and was asked to campaign particularly against the slave trade. It is estimated that between 1776 and 1807 Britain trafficked about 1 million people. Wilberforce had a huge issue to tackle, and was up against the establishment view. That was described eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington when she spoke of banks and Members of Parliament with an interest in the slave trade. The Society of Friends had been campaigning against the trade for some time, and had presented petitions in 1783 and 1787. Wilberforce introduced his Bill against the trade in 1791, but it was easily defeated.

We must not dwell only on Wilberforce, however, because many other parliamentarians—and people outside Parliament—were instrumental in the abolition campaign. In an intervention on the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, I mentioned the sugar boycott. That was of particular interest to me because Hull contains Wilberforce House, the first museum in the world to be dedicated to the anti-slavery movement. It is about to be reopened following the investment of a huge amount of money to prepare it for the 2007 celebrations. There is a stand providing information about the sugar boycott and the role played by women in choosing not to buy or cook with sugar. Thomas Clarkson, whom many Members have mentioned, said that when he travelled around the country,

“there was no town, through which I passed, in which there was not some one individual who left off the use of sugar”.

That shows that action was not taken just in Parliament, and that ordinary people, when they heard the facts about the slave trade, were so appalled that they wanted to do their bit. For the first time, a campaign for the boycotting of a commodity was initiated by ordinary people. Of course, it was to happen again in years to come: I remember the boycotting of products from South Africa in the 1980s in support of the anti-apartheid movement.

The success of the sugar boycott eventually led to the establishment in the 1820s of female anti-slavery groups in many British cities, involving notable female abolitionists such as Elizabeth Heyrick, who called for a total ban. The slave trade was abolished in 1807, and a month after William Wilberforce died in 1833 Parliament passed the Abolition of Slavery Act, which gave all slaves in the British Empire their freedom.

As well as campaigning against slavery, Wilberforce had a range of other interests, including animal welfare. He was involved in the setting up of the charity that is now known as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Having described William Wilberforce’s role as a Hull MP and his pivotal role here in Parliament, I want to say something about Hull. As a port city with a strong maritime and trading background, it has always had an eye to the rest of the world. William Wilberforce stood up to the slave trade, but Hull was different from Bristol and Liverpool, much of whose wealth was built on the trade; Hull did not have that slave-trade background, so it came to the issue with clean hands. Obviously, that might be because Hull is on the wrong side of the country, but I like to think that there was some principle behind that, too. Those principles have been followed in some of the work done in the past few years.

In 1982, Hull became the first city in the west to twin with a third-world city, Freetown, in Sierra Leone. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister talked about his recent visits to Sierra Leone and what is going on there. The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks, mentioned that the world’s first colony for free Africans was set up in Freetown in 1792. To return to Hull in the 1980s, the then leader of the council, Alderman Patrick Doyle, thought that it was important to build a link with Sierra Leone, and so he twinned Hull with Freetown. That link has gone from strength to strength over the years; eight of our schools are now actively twinned with schools in Freetown, and there are further links with churches and hospitals.

Hon. Members will know that Freetown is still recovering from a lengthy period of considerable turmoil, and there is much scope for development in Sierra Leone. Later, I shall talk about one of the projects taking place in 2007 to link further children and young people in Hull with those in Sierra Leone. Hull was the first local authority to sign up to Amnesty International, and Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela are freemen of the city.

I should like to put it on the record that what Hull has achieved is wonderful. It is really remarkable, and I wish that other authorities throughout the country would follow the lead of its authority; if more authorities did so, we would all be in a much better place. My own local authority resisted any such twinning on the basis that there was no economic parity between the two communities. If twinning just comes down to economic parity, we will not go anywhere. There is so much that we can learn culturally, and my hon. Friend is demonstrating that in her speech.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and she is absolutely right—if we considered the issue purely on grounds of economics, perhaps it would not be the route to take, but we all recognise that we have an international responsibility. Hull has been proactive in looking further than the end of its nose.

For several years, William Wilberforce lectures have been held in Hull. Last year, James Coleridge Taylor, head of the National Commission for Democracy and Human Rights in Sierra Leone, was the key speaker. The Wilberforce lectures celebrate Kingston upon Hull’s historic role in combating the abuse of human rights, as personified in the work of William Wilberforce. This year, there are a number of lectures; this Sunday, there will be a lecture by the Prime Minister of Barbados, who is coming to Hull, and later in the year the Archbishops of Canterbury and of York will take part in the lectures.

The fair trade movement is a key way of trying to deal with the factors that allow slavery to continue today. A few years ago, I attended a meeting about young children who were slaves in the cocoa-growing industry in Africa; fair trade and the work done by the makers of Divine chocolate and other products are really important. It is about consumers making a positive choice to put their principles into practice. Hull was awarded Fairtrade city status in March 2005, and that was achieved through the hard work of grass-roots people in Hull—the Churches, the schools, the One World shop, and the university. That sent the signal that Hull is serious about marking its proper place in the world, and behaving properly and responsibly towards the rest of the world. I am proud that we have a strong fair trade tradition in Hull.

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation, or WISE, which has been established at the university of Hull. Its patron is Desmond Tutu, who said of it:

“It is exemplary that the university should build on the history of the city and one of its most outstanding citizens. Tragically, slavery and the violation of human rights are still with us in the 21st century. The institute will be a beacon that will continue to throw a light on issues that are too often overlooked.”

The institute brings together the study of history, law, politics, anthropology, medicine and genetics. Its funding launch was held at Downing street and was hosted by Cherie Booth, and it was opened in 2006 by the President of Ghana. We in Hull are very proud of that institute.

Hull is holding 34 weeks of celebrations to mark this important anniversary. We started off with the fair trade fortnight at the end of February, and the celebrations will run all the way through to October, ending in black history month. As I have mentioned, one of the main events, the opening of Wilberforce house after a £1.6 million refit, will be held this weekend. It is a wonderful building, and it now has an education unit to allow schoolchildren from the area to attend courses in the house, and I am proud of that. I looked at Wilberforce house’s website just before this debate, and it says that all the courses for this year are solidly booked; there is no space at all. It is heartening that all schoolchildren in Hull will be able to access the museum. One of the lectures is titled “William Wilberforce—the role of the individual”, and it is interesting that one individual can change history. We often hear young people saying, “Well, it doesn’t really matter. We can’t do anything,” but actually they can.

I want to mention Cafesociety.org, a project in Freetown. It has made a range of short films with young people in Sierra Leone that focus on a diverse range of topics, and include films about the role of football in post-civil-war Sierra Leone, the story of a former child soldier, and the life of the city’s market traders. The films will be shown by the British Council in Freetown and in Hull. Work is under way with one of our secondary schools, the Winifred Holtby school, and real links are being built between young people in Hull and Sierra Leone. It will mean young people from different parts of the world talking to each other, but having so much in common.

I should mention the Wilberforce Women event. At the end of 2006, women in Hull were invited to attend photography workshops and submit photographs that they had taken, or that had inspired them. The pictures were made into greetings cards, and the women wrote personal messages inside. In February, the cards were personally delivered to women in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which, as I have mentioned, has important links to Hull. The process is now being repeated; women in Freetown are submitting their photographs and personal messages, which will be hand-delivered in Hull. Local Hull photojournalist Lee Karen Stow and fine art photographer Fiona Caley will spend two weeks delivering basic photography skills to the women of Freetown. The finale will be an exhibition of all the photographs and messages sent between the women of the two cities at the Ferens art gallery in Hull in October 2007.

There is a lot going on in Hull; there are events in the city and between countries. I must just mention that the guest beer in the House of Commons last week was the William Wilberforce Freedom ale. There is also William Wilberforce Freedom fair trade coffee, which is produced in my constituency of Hull, so there are commemorative projects of that kind, too. Finally, I point out that the local paper, the Hull Daily Mail, is running a petition on some of the issues on slavery that we still face today. The petition reads:

“I urge governments and international bodies to work together to better understand the Transatlantic Slave Trade, address its impact on countries and communities around the world, and work to end slavery for all time.”

There are already more than 3,500 signatures on that petition, and I hope that many more people will sign it during the year. It is important that we mark this important anniversary.

I am proud that we are doing so much in Hull. Bristol and Liverpool are hosting events to mark the abolition of the slave trade, but Hull has a particular role to play as the place from which William Wilberforce came. Despite everything, it has remained true to the principle of an international perspective—a belief that we are all brothers and sisters in the world together.

May I begin by saying that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Ms Johnson), who spoke with great pride and passion about her constituency? I am particularly pleased that she spoke in great detail about William Wilberforce, because that gives me an excuse to wax lyrical about one of the famous sons of my own constituency. May I congratulate the Government on finding time for this important debate? I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on his role in it and on making sure that the celebrations this year are as good and wide-ranging as possible.

The debate has been marked by a number of excellent speeches, including the historical tour de force by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). He has an advantage over most of us, because he has written a book on William Wilberforce and thus researched the subject. My hon. Friends were a little unkind in asking him penetrating, detailed questions that they would not put to a professor of history, but it is a mark of his great talent that he could deal with them brilliantly. I was taken, too, with the forthright, informative and thought-provoking contributions from the hon. Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and for Brent, South (Ms Butler).

It is right that we should hold this debate to celebrate—that is the key word—the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807, but what, in fact, are we celebrating? First, and obviously, we are celebrating those men and women who made individual contributions to the great cause of the 18th and 19th centuries—people such as William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, James Ramsay and Thomas Clarkson, as well as thousands of ordinary people, many slaves and freed slaves who supported the campaign against the slave trade. They had the moral passion, the sheer tenacity, dedication, fortitude, vision and single-mindedness to overcome tremendous odds and setbacks too numerous to mention to achieve their goals. When they started their campaign, nothing was inevitable or predetermined. They campaigned to abolish the slave trade—that took them 20 years to accomplish—then they went on to abolish slavery throughout the British colonies, which took them a further 26 years. Secondly, we are celebrating places with connections to those great social pioneers—the towns and villages the length and breadth of the country that take immense pride in their famous sons and daughters. The obvious example is William Wilberforce, with his roots in, and political representation of, the great city of Kingston upon Hull, but there are many others—notably Thomas Clarkson, who was born and raised in Wisbech in the Isle of Ely in my constituency of North-East Cambridgeshire.

As well as spatial connections, there are connections primarily among Christian groups and denominations, which came together in common cause and buried sectarian differences to provide a united and coherent front. Chief among those denominations, as we have heard many times in the debate, were the Quakers, whose selfless and self-effacing devotion to the campaign cannot be overstated. They were closely followed by evangelists and Anglicans such as Thomas Clarkson. Indeed, the first meaningful and formal anti-slavery group—the committee for effecting the abolition of the slave trade—was established in 1787 and was composed of nine Quakers and four Anglicans. In an intervention, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) told the House that all Anglican bishops were against abolition, but my research did not show that that was the case. The bishops may have opposed abolition, but many ordinary Anglican communicants, including Thomas Clarkson, were very much involved in the movement.

The formal birth of the campaign in 1787 was probably one of the first examples of political campaigning and lobbying as we know them today. At the time, however, there were no easy and fast means of communication, let alone decent overland transport: no telephone, no photography, no television, no telegraphy or e-mail; no trains or automobiles—just a slow and rudimentary postal service, horse-drawn coaches and one’s trusty nag. We should certainly celebrate the incredible fortitude of all those involved who overcame those massive challenges to persuade others and change public perceptions. We should celebrate, too, the role of our fledgling parliamentary democracy in that process. Although the campaign was unacceptably protracted in today’s terms, it was nevertheless one of the earliest examples of public opinion overcoming powerful vested economic interests through the use of petitions and lobbying—a point well made by the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington. Finally, we should celebrate the forerunner of human rights pressure groups and mark the establishment in 1823 of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, which later became the Anti-Slavery Society.

There is therefore much to celebrate in this bicentenary year, but paramount is the contribution of the key players. Abolition was without doubt a people process, and although much of the praise has rightly gone to William Wilberforce, I trust that the House will forgive my indulgence if I share with it the massive contribution of Thomas Clarkson, who was born in 1760 in Wisbech in my constituency, the son of John Clarkson, headmaster of Wisbech free grammar school. Thomas Clarkson is, without doubt, that Georgian gem of a town’s most famous son, and Wisbech town centre is dominated by a 70 ft-high monument to him, which was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and erected in 1881 following public subscription.

Thomas Clarkson showed immense intellectual promise as a young man at St. John’s College, Cambridge university, which is my alma mater. By strange coincidence, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North said, it is the college that William Wilberforce attended. I do not know whether Wilberforce and Clarkson knew each other at college, but it is remarkable that the two central figures in the campaign went to the same Cambridge college. Clarkson entered a Latin essay competition in 1785. The essay question was, “Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?” The research that he did for the essay changed Clarkson’s life, as it challenged him to consider the question of the slave trade. After winning the prize, he decided to go to London to have the essay translated and printed in English. When he stopped at the village of Wadesmill, which is now on the A10 somewhere in Hertfordshire, he experienced what he called a spiritual revelation from God. He wrote:

“A thought came into my mind that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end”.

It was that experience that “ordered” him to devote his life to abolishing the trade.

Clarkson’s work on the issue in the early years brought him into contact with influential men such as James Ramsay and Granville Sharp. In May 1787, Clarkson was one of the three pioneering Anglicans, along with Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce, who formed the committee for effecting the abolition of the slave trade— a small non-denominational group that lobbied for greater public and parliamentary support. Clarkson agreed to play a leading part in the affairs of the committee, and he took responsibility for collecting information and researching the issues to support the committee’s case. He faced much opposition from supporters of the trade in the many of the cities that he visited, as the slave traders were an influential group and the trade itself was seen at that time as legitimate, lucrative and responsible for the prosperity of ports such as Liverpool and Bristol. Indeed, on an early visit to Liverpool in 1787 he was attacked and nearly killed by a gang of sailors who had been paid to assassinate him. He only just escaped with his life. In the same year, 1787, Clarkson published his pamphlet, “A Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Probable Consequences of its Abolition.”

Clarkson was very effective at giving the committee a high public profile, spending the next seven years riding around England promoting the cause and gathering evidence. The sheer magnitude of this endeavour takes one’s breath away. He covered some 35,000 miles, mainly on horseback. History does not tell us whether it was the same horse, but I doubt it, poor thing—I am sure he changed horses frequently. In the course of his journeys he interviewed almost 20,000 sailors and people involved in the trade. He obtained equipment used on the slave ships, such as iron handcuffs, leg shackles, thumb screws, instruments for forcing open slaves’ jaws, and branding irons, which he showed in his publications and at the many public meetings at which he spoke.

My hon. Friend is giving a superb account of the work of Clarkson. Will he, as suggested by my constituent, Mrs. Joan Woollard, encourage Wisbech and neighbouring fenland constituencies, such as mine, to make something more of Clarkson during this bicentenary year?

Mrs. Woollard has also contacted me and I have replied to her. We cannot claim to be doing as much as Hull, but perhaps the resources of Fenland district council and Wisbech town council are not of comparable magnitude. However, there is a programme ably run, mainly by the Wisbech Society. There are church services, including one a week on Sunday, and there will be other events throughout the year.

I thank the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) for his congratulations to the Wisbech and Fenland museum on the loan of Clarkson’s chest, which he used to transport his artefacts and visual aids around the country. Perhaps he had another horse to carry that—it must be huge. That chest will form the centrepiece of the exhibition in Westminster Hall, which opens on 23 May. It might also interest the House and my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr. Hayes) to know that the renowned brewery in Wisbech, Elgoods brewery, which brews an extremely palatable real ale, will brew a special ale to be known as the Brookes ale, named after Clarkson’s ship which he drew and took round to show people how the slaves were packed into such vessels. The ale will be launched at the same exhibition opening on 23 May and will be available to all quaffers of such ale in the bars of the Palace of Westminster from 23 May till the end of our summer term. I am afraid we have not got as far as brewing something for the lady Members who do not drink beer. I will mention that to Elgoods—[Interruption.]