Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

I am glad that we have a brief time to discuss an extremely important part of the Bill and the extremely important issue of human trafficking, and the action that we wish the Government to take to stop this particularly vile trade. I wish to speak in particular to amendment 26, in which we seek to establish that the Secretary of State should have a code of conduct to guide entry clearance officers in their treatment of applications for entry which they suspect involve human trafficking. We have discussed some issues in the past couple of hours that deeply divide the two sides of the House. I know that human trafficking is not one of those. The Minister will feel as strongly as I do that we should end the practice of human trafficking. One of the things that has, sadly, led to Britain becoming one of the destination countries for human traffickers is the widespread recognition that Britain's borders are not secure enough. That, along with this country's prosperity and the relative ease of illegal working here, is one of the reasons why Britain has become a destination for human traffickers. We Conservative Members believe that it is impossible to tackle the overall issue of crime in the UK effectively without addressing the problems at our borders. We know that human traffickers target Britain, and we know that there are various particularly pernicious forms of human trafficking. It is often part of the sex industry, and there has been a staggering and deeply depressing increase in the percentage of prostitutes in this country who are young women trafficked from abroad, either from eastern European countries just beyond the edge of the European Union, or from Africa. There is a real problem, as was illustrated just today, when we discovered the details of a Home Office report that included research carried out as long ago as 2006, although for some reason it has not come to light until today. I always seek to be balanced, so I will give the Minister one quote from the Daily Express and one from The Guardian. The Daily Express says:""Criminals are convinced that Britain's border controls are 'soft' and that police are tolerant of the vice trade, according to a Home Office report"." The Guardian, perhaps even more seriously, says:""Corruption and bribery were mentioned by a range of interviewees involved in smuggling and trafficking as a means of smoothing the passage into the UK"." I know that the Minister will be as concerned—indeed, disturbed—as I am at the thought that there are serious, organised, international criminals who believe that bribery and corruption can be used to smooth the way into the UK. [Interruption.] The Minister seeks to intervene from a sedentary position. As I say, there is, I think, nothing much that divides us on the need to combat human trafficking more effectively. Our amendment is one way of taking a step forward on that. He knows that I would urge on him much other activity in that sphere, but I should like to give him a chance to say something on this important issue, so I shall end my remarks.