Every few months, we debate human trafficking in the House and, with wringing of hands and tearing of garments, every speaker highlights how awful it is. Ministers are abject with apology and say how dreadful it is, and the Government say that they are doing everything they can to stop it. Let us give the Minister his due. He is thoroughly decent and is doing a difficult job with conviction and humour. We all know that he is a good egg. He travels the world searching for answers, studying the problem and meeting officials and, rather like "The Pilgrim's Progress", is bedevilled, I hope, by obstacles rather than temptations. I pay tribute to his commitment.

I had not considered human trafficking before 2005, although I was trained in the caring professions. I first became aware of its horrors when, as a member of the Select Committee on European Scrutiny, I visited Romania and Bulgaria before their accession to the EU. I had never travelled to eastern Europe before 2005, and I had no idea of the extent of the abject poverty there, nor that fraud was a recognised way of life and that the judiciary and the police were riddled with corruption. I was also oblivious to the fact that there is, and has been for generations, a Roma community with 6 million to 8 million disadvantaged people living in a similar way to that in the middle ages in Britain. Some 70 per cent. of people in most towns and villages live on the breadline, and their only means of transport is a horse and cart, with the horse sharing the accommodation with the family.

In that environment, there are inevitable risks of young people in such communities being trafficked to more prosperous western European countries. Children are often sold through debt bondage to successful gangs who prey on the poorest members of their own communities. Some are duped by the lover-boy syndrome, and are persuaded by lucrative jobs that do not exist but are under the illusion that the Elysian fields are not far away.

Three years ago, trafficking in Britain was hardly acknowledged. There is relatively little mention of it in Hansard before 2004. Trafficking tended to be confused with prostitution, and I believe that it still is. Child trafficking was considered to be something to do with adoption from families who had too many children and wanted to find homes for them. It was something that charities dealt with.

What is the reality? Human trafficking is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world, comparable drugs and arms dealing. If it were not lucrative, traffickers would not do it. However, when the going gets tough, traffickers become craftier. If the risks become greater and the money less certain, traffickers switch to another country or another field of criminal activity. There is a pan-European criminal network, but much trafficking is conducted by a loose association of men and women who make a living by exploiting poor and vulnerable younger people who are looking for a better life.

Two years ago, the media were in full cry. A week did not pass without lurid pictures of grotty rooms inhabited by loosely clad women. The horror stories abounded. More recently, the police raid in Slough resulted in middle-page spreads in the tabloids depicting Roma children, many under 10, pickpocketing, stealing from ATMs and shoplifting. The media captured vividly the discovery of so-called cannabis factories on the edge of northern towns and cities with Vietnamese boys tending the plants for rich and influential bosses.

We must not be too surprised that the result of Pentameter 2 was 167 victims discovered, 528 criminals arrested, 822 premises visited, 6,400 police intelligence reports gathered and £500,000 recovered. Of the victims, 13 were children. That is hardly surprising, but what is surprising is that, apart from the BBC, which ran the news item all day, the media did not give it much media attention. It is as though they have grown bored with the subject, the public are anaesthetised to horror stories that no longer shock, and the media are moving on to something else.

Furthermore, MPs do not see many votes in the fight against trafficking. Constituents are not too concerned about exploitation, provided that it is not in their street. In Devon, most people tell me that it simply does not happen there, but they are wrong. Pentameter 2 found evidence of trafficking in many west country areas, and quite a lot in Plymouth. The fact is that it is all over Britain, and perhaps the Minister will confirm that if he has half a chance and sufficient time.

There is some confusion about nomenclature. The difficulty is the culture of disbelief and the inability of trafficked people to disclose and articulate what they have been through. They are fearful of reprisals. Some of the young people who are trafficked to Britain are carefully schooled so that they can escape quickly from a local authority into whose hands they may be placed. Just yesterday, The Western Mail in Wales, which I read regularly, reported that 35 children were missing without trace from major cities in Wales, raising concern about child trafficking there.

The hon. Gentleman has done a considerable amount of work on the matter, and I apologise for the fact that I cannot stay for the whole of the debate. Has he seen the briefing prepared by ECPAT UK—End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes—which highlights local authorities' lack of concern, and their inability and unwillingness to accept the protocols, particularly the Council of Europe's convention covering children, and to give victims the benefit of doubt on, for example, age? That report seems to show that local authorities have some way to go in working as part of the multi-agency approach that Pentameter is supposed to provide.

Interventions from the hon. Gentleman are always worth listening to. He has an immense amount of experience. I visited the United Nations conference in Vienna with him, which was an education for me and, I think, a mild education for him. His point was well made.

I am sure that when the Council of Europe convention on action against trafficking in human beings is ratified—I hope that the Minister will say something about that—local authorities will get into gear and become more sympathetic and sensitive to the problem, but I reckon that the problem is lack of resources. Until they receive more resources, they have enough on their hands without this problem.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs said only a short time ago that he and his Committee were shocked to learn that 400 children had gone missing from local authorities in this country? Is he aware that the despicable crime of human trafficking is closely linked with prostitution and the running of brothels? Does he believe that the police, and particularly the courts, should take a tougher line with those who run brothels?

I do not know whether to refer to my hon. Friend or the hon. Member. Perhaps I should refer to him as something in-between. I thank him for his intervention.

The subject is complicated and the word "missing" in the phrase, "children going missing from local authority care" is slightly confusing. When children go missing, they are often in transit in local authority so-called care. Having been found as victims of trafficking, they are placed in a so-called place of care, but it is not secure, and there is a problem with how secure it should be. If it is too secure, the children are in a prison.

Brothels are where many trafficked women are found. The problem, as I am sure the Minister will say, is to obtain sufficient evidence that the women are prepared to make available to enable the police to nail the traffickers. They are terrified of reprisals, they do not speak the language and many of them are in a strange country. There are great complications in nailing traffickers, who are much more nimble than we are. I am grateful for that intervention.

The Western Mail reported 35 children missing without trace in major cities in Wales. The Government clearly have a problem with identifying victims of human trafficking. The Crown Prosecution Service should remember that they have a duty to explore all the facts when dealing with young people involved in, for example, cannabis cultivation and other organised crime before they seek a prison sentence.

Let us remember what trafficking is. It is the exploitation of someone by making them do something that they would not want to do if they were fully aware, compromising them, duping them and coercing them. The problem is how to distinguish between genuine victims of trafficking and illegal migrants. That recognition is critical because it determines how the Government treat people. Illegal migrants are usually given short shrift and a one-way ticket back to where they came from.

The Government have a poor track record on producing meaningful statistics. The problem is that they do not really have any statistics and those that they do have are totally misleading. We were told that the UK Human Trafficking Centre in Sheffield would change all that, so perhaps the Minister could tell us whether it has. Will the Minister tell us when we will have some reliable statistics that bring together the information from the various police and UK Border Agency operations?

One can understand that victims of trafficking are a problem for the Government because there is always some doubt about whether people have been genuinely trafficked or whether they knew what they were getting into and are illegal migrants searching for a better way of life. Even with genuine victims, the Government are often reluctant to identify them early enough and decide what to do with them, where they should go, how to fund them and how to help them.

Media coverage of Pentameter 2 suggested that an increasing number of British young women are trafficked from one part of the UK to another. Sadly, the sexual exploitation of British young people is nothing new. Operation Glover—a police operation—focused on the internal trafficking of British children, and that is what the media picked up on when reporting on Pentameter 2. Somehow the press completely missed the fact that 13 children from Romania, Nigeria, Brazil, China, Estonia, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Congo and Cameroon were found by Pentameter 2. Two of the children were returned without a welfare assessment and were virtually deported on the spot. In addition, two children went missing within hours of being placed in care. One child was issued with an asylum registration card that contained the details of a false passport given to her by a trafficker even though the police and the UK Human Trafficking Centre both knew that it was fraudulent. UK Border Agency staff who issued the card maintain that they were unable to do anything else even though they knew that the details had been provided to her by traffickers and were totally false. It is clear that the protection response to children cannot be hailed as successful—in that case it was deplorable.

Out of the 167 victims discovered by Pentameter 2, how many were provided with legal representation consistent with the Government's obligation under article 12 of the Council of Europe convention on action against human trafficking? Out of the 13 children found, how many were provided with guardians consistent with the Government's obligation under article 10 of the convention? How many of the victims are now in a safe refuge to which traffickers do not have access and how many have agreed to give evidence against their traffickers?

Pentameter 2 has achieved 528 arrests, which is a remarkable number, yet we lack specifics. Where did those arrested come from and how many were UK based? Will the Minister put on the official record from which countries they hailed? How many of those 528 have been charged with trafficking offences? It is interesting to note that the figure of 528 that was reported under Pentameter 2 was adjusted in the revised action plan that was announced on the same day, which states that the actual number of traffickers found was not 528 but only 99. Are those 528 individuals separate or have fewer people been charged with multiple crimes?

Have there been any successful prosecutions under Pentameter 2, because on 3 July The Guardian reported that there had been 24 successful prosecutions as a result of the operation? In other words, is this massive police crackdown putting traffickers behind bars and if so, how many? Alternatively, are traffickers more nimble with their footwork than the heavy hand of the constabularies acting together with the bureaucracy of the Crown Prosecution Service and the unco-ordinated activities of the UK Border Agency?

My hon. Friend lists an impressive array of questions that we look forward to the Minister answering in due course. In addition, may I ask the Minister what sentence someone prosecuted for trafficking will serve, whether they will serve their sentence in full, whether the sentence will be exemplary and whether traffickers are being prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002?

I did not think that it would be fair to ask the Minister all these questions today so I tabled them last night so that they would appear on the Order Paper. The Minister has had early warning and has been able to work on the matter since early this morning. Surely, one of the guiding principles should be to deter traffickers by making them increasingly uncomfortable if they continue to ply their trade in this country. Our aim must be to drive them out of this country and, with that in mind, I established the all-party group on the trafficking of women and children. We plan to set up similar cells in other parliaments in all EU countries so that Back-Bench MPs can put pressure on their Governments to shut down the entire trafficking network. That is our goal.

In conjunction with ECPAT UK, which, as the Minister knows, is a coalition that represents Save the Children, UNICEF, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Children's Society, Anti-Slavery International and the Jubilee Campaign, we have made an application to a substantial human rights charitable trust in this country to provide 20 per cent. of the total funding to the Daphne III project, which is partly funded by the European Commission. I hope that my mild optimism about that will be rewarded because it would result in sufficient funds being made available over the next two years to support the establishment of the new venture and would provide an opportunity for Britain to lead the way in outlawing trafficking, or at least reducing it, on a European level—and my goodness we need that to happen.

With ECPAT's help and expertise, parliamentarians throughout Europe can make a major contribution to tackling this growing problem. By October, we will hopefully have set up parliamentary groups in Poland, Romania, Germany, Italy and Holland. We will then do so in the rest of Europe. Perhaps the Minister would like to add his support to that initiative, which is currently being considered by the European Commission's justice, freedom and security directorate. I am sure that a nod from him would produce the necessary result—I hope that it will do, anyway.

The hon. Gentleman has focused on the position in Europe, but does he agree that the findings of Pentameter 2 show that the majority of victims come from China and Thailand? One of the problems is that those victims did not have the same level of coercion, which led to other complications. Although the hon. Gentleman is doing excellent work in Europe, does he agree that the Government should do more in the far east and work with Governments there to try to eliminate the problems in the source countries?

What the hon. Gentleman does not understand is that I am not St. George and there are a lot of dragons, but I thank him for his intervention.

By October, we will be setting up these parliamentary groups and we hope that the Minister thinks that they are complementary to the successful initiatives he is taking forward under the action plan. I hope that parliamentary groups in this country and the rest of Europe will be able to work with him and his teams of Ministers. Once we sort out Europe, we will deal with the far east, but at the moment, we are trying to get a ring around Europe, so it becomes more difficult to traffic in and around Europe.

Over the past two years, our all-party parliamentary group on the trafficking of women and children has tabled more than 150 questions—even though the Minister has been unable to answer a number of them—initiated debates, and generally put pressure on the Government here to raise the profile of what I call new slavery, both in the Commons and the Lords. I believe that the group even helped to get the former Prime Minister to sign the Council of Europe convention—he was somewhat reluctant to do so until a number of questions were asked by hon. Members from all parties. Although we are still waiting for ratification, as the Minister knows, I would like to put on record the immense amount of help I have received from Clare Short, Baroness Elizabeth Butler- Sloss, my hon. Friend Mr. Vara and the other officers of the group.

Human beings are particularly vulnerable to trafficking if they are poor and believe that a new life awaits them round the corner that can provide them with the material prosperity they are lacking. It is more difficult to unearth trafficked women if prostitution is driven underground, as it has been in Sweden where prostitution is illegal.

Will the hon. Gentleman given way?

I will in a moment. Can the Minister confirm whether there are similar plans to make prostitution illegal in Britain because I know that he has been thinking about doing so and has led discussions on it?

There is nothing illegal about prostitution in Sweden. The illegality is in the purchase of women and the purchase of sexual services. What the women do is perfectly legal.

That has put me in my place. I thank the hon. Lady for telling me that, but it does not alter the need to ask whether the Minister is considering making prostitution or the buying of services illegal in Britain.

It is said that 800,000 people are trafficked each year around the world, and that is likely to continue in one form or another for the foreseeable future. All that we can do is to try to reduce it, to punish the traffickers severely and to help genuine victims so that they can embark on a new life. Incidentally, the so-called reflection period of 28 or even 45 days fails to grasp the essential conditions of trafficking. It takes years of support, psychological help and kindness for trafficked people to recover from what has always been an appalling ordeal. Above all, victims need compassion and understanding. As Vicky Quandamatteo, the director-psychologist at the Il Fiore Rome refuge said, anyone who believes that trafficked women can snap out of it and become useful members of society within 28 or 45 days, without a prolonged period of support and help, needs their head examined.

Although the Government always mention the sterling work of the POPPY project, it is worth pointing out that as a result of Pentameter 2, POPPY accepted 46 referrals. Where are the other 111 women found under Pentameter 2 now residing? How many of those are receiving the support that they need? How many have already been forcibly removed from the UK? What plans are there to establish more POPPY projects throughout the country?

Pentameter 2 is over. Chief Constable Dr. Tim Brain is to be complimented on a highly proficient and professional operation, following, as he did, in the footsteps of Graham Maxwell, who was the mastermind of Pentameter 1. We are fortunate to have police officers of their calibre. Will we now have Pentameter 3, or will the Minister ensure that there is a chief superintendent in every police force who has an ongoing responsibility to outlaw human trafficking? Without the Pentameter initiatives, it is unlikely that we would have known of or found the trafficked victims whom we have found. Those victims were not found only in inner cities. Will the Minister remind hon. Members of how many victims were found outside cities? Besides the 163 brothels that were raided, how many victims were found in the 273 private homes that were raided, and where are those people?

In this respect, transparency is crucial. There is too much secrecy. Local communities need to keep a lookout, but they need to know where they are looking. Bringing into the public domain the information that I have described will make the general public more vigilant. They will be alert to the fact that trafficking is a problem that affects many towns and villages throughout the country.

I thank Mr. Speaker for offering to be the first president of the all-party group on trafficking of women and children to mark the 200th year of the abolition of the slave trade, and agreeing to host a major reception at the end of October in the Speaker's House. I hope that we can announce that we in Britain are spearheading a new initiative against human trafficking. I hope that with the support of the EU and backed by charitable funds, we can make even more progress in ensuring that this new form of slavery becomes a thing of the past.

I join Mr. Steen in praising the Minister. Indeed, I add my praise for the work of the hon. Member for Totnes. However, I am extraordinarily depressed by his speech, because the reason why slavery was abolished was that it was made a crime to purchase slaves, and he has just said that we should not consider in the House or anywhere else the demand side of trafficked and other prostituted women, particularly trafficked children, and make any purchase of sexual favours from trafficked people a crime. He wishes to intervene simply on the supply side, but unless we tackle the demand side, there will be absolutely no reduction.

The hon. Gentleman talks about creating a Europe-wide network of parliamentary groups, and obviously, as a strong pro-European, I wish him well and will support that. He said jocularly that he would sort out Europe first and then the rest of the world, but the main difficulty is that a great part of the trafficking takes place within the borders of the European Union. For example, when the World cup was held in Germany in 2006, the Germans organised the trafficking of 40,000 extra prostitutes into Germany to serve the clients, as they put it, who came to the World cup and, in the midst of either jubilation or dismay at their teams' performances, felt that they should go and buy sex with some girl brought in from Czechoslovakia, Latvia or Lithuania. There is a fundamental divide on how we should tackle the problem. I am firmly of the view that, unless we consider the demand side in some way, we will not deal with the supply.

The hon. Gentleman read out some of the statistics from Pentameter 2, but if we look at the latest available conviction data for England and Wales provided by the Ministry of Justice, we see that there were a total of 15 convictions in 2006.

Fifteen?

Yes, 15 people were found guilty of trafficking for sexual exploitation. A grand total of 17 people—14 men and three women—were found guilty of abusing children through prostitution and pornography. Those are absolutely ludicrous conviction rates. Certainly, under Operation Pentameter 2, many massage parlours and brothels were raided and a number of people detained, but as the hon. Gentleman rightly underlined, instead of obeying the injunction of the Bible,

"Suffer the little children to come unto me", the reaction of Government officials was, "Suffer the little children to be put into my hands and I'll boot them out of the country as fast as I can." Frankly, that shames Britain. Far from a freedom chain to get those sex slaves to freedom, we maintain their exploitation by dumping them back in their countries as quickly as we can, in which case they simply turn round to their traffickers and say, "Get me back in to make some money."

We need to consider the problem more broadly. The hon. Gentleman took an intervention about Sweden from my hon. Friend Fiona Mactaggart. Roger Matthews, professor of criminology at South Bank university, who has just published a very good book called "Prostitution, Politics and Policy", says:

"In Sweden, where the purchase of sexual services has been criminalised there has been a significant decrease in street prostitution and a lower level of trafficking than in neighbouring countries. Importantly, the recent law which makes the purchase of sexual services illegal appears to have affected public attitudes in general with the majority of teenage men seeing the purchase of sexual services as illegitimate."

I would welcome a change in culture in Britain whereby the majority of teenage men—indeed, adult men—considered as illegitimate the purchase of sexual services, and until we have that change of culture, all our fine words and all our co-operation through the Parliaments of Europe will count for nothing.

We can contrast Sweden with the state of Nevada, where prostituted women operate legally. Fifty-seven per cent of the students surveyed at the university of Nevada thought that it was impossible to rape a prostituted woman because, once money had been offered or paid, the woman had to do whatever the man wanted. That illustrates the cultural gap between those who argue for the legalisation of prostitution as we see it in Nevada, where people believe that a prostituted woman cannot be raped, and Sweden, where the men are confronted with their responsibility and there has been a cultural change regarding the purchase of sexual services and a significant decrease in trafficking. There is not one country in the world where prostitution is tolerated, legalised or semi-legalised that has not seen an increase in trafficked women. The hon. Gentleman will have to face the fact that if he wants to cut supply, he will have to consider the demand side.

A number of us have raised this issue. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the House did so, and my hon. Friend the Member for Slough—who might catch your eye in a few minutes, Mr. Martlew—proposed certain amendments. They fell because, as we know, the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill was having its own difficulties in getting through all its stages in the two Houses of Parliament. I understand that, and my hon. Friend the Minister and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary have agreed to consider the matter. There have been visits to Sweden and other countries.

We need to examine the issue because, until we name and shame the men, we will not do much, even if we do raid as many massage parlours and brothels as were raided under Operation Pentameter. When we raised the issue in the past and said that there were a large number of trafficked women in Britain, we were rubbished by the media. The hon. Gentleman was right to draw attention to the fact that the media tend to back away from the subject; they are nervous of it.

I took part in an interesting debate last week with David Davis, our former colleague, who is now standing in a by-election; Mr. Henry Porter, who writes for The Observer; and Mr. David Aaronovitch, who writes for The Times. Mr. Aaronovitch was on my side, and Mr. Porter was on Mr. Davis's side. When these issues were raised by the Leader of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Slough and others, Mr. Aaronivitch and Mr. Porter both argued powerfully that there should be no curb or limit on the right of men to buy whatever sex they wanted.

I mentioned some statistics a moment ago, as listed by the Ministry of Justice, but it is interesting to note that there is no statistic for the offence of having sex with someone under the age of 18 without consent. Consent is difficult to define, but my hon. Friend the Minister for Borders and Immigration said in the House in answer to me that to have paid-for sex with anyone under the age of 18 was rape. However, that statistic is not listed. As we know, the number of convictions for rape in Britain is pathetically and absurdly low, because we do not have people in the Crown Prosecution Service with specific responsibility for rape cases.

I mean no disrespect, but this is a debate about Pentameter 2, rather than prostitution. The debate is not only about sex; it also covers work trafficking and domestic slavery. Sex is one part of it. There is a bigger picture. Even if we were to do what the hon. Gentleman suggests on the demand side, we would still have trafficking for work and for domestic slavery, and it would still be in large numbers.

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I may claim some credit for initiating a campaign, by raising the matter two or three times in Prime Minister's questions, about the Council of Europe's convention on action against trafficking in human beings. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is about trafficking in general and not only the trafficking of women. I support stronger trade union rights, workplace inspections, rights for agency workers and others, but that is not quite where the Conservative party wants to be on protecting workers from any sort of exploitation.

I return to the question of statistics and finding hard information. When my hon. Friend the Member for Slough and others raised the issue, we were criticised for using figures that were said to be unrealistic. I cited the figure of 25,000 trafficked people, which was given in the Daily Mirrorand came from a Home Office estimate three or four years ago. Julia O'Connell Davidson, a professor—there is always a professor involved—from the university of Nottingham, wrote to The Guardian on 28 December criticising me and claiming that I had made a "startling assertion". She said that that number was

"more than the entire work force of Debenhams. How is it that this vast number of women and girls are so readily available to male clients and yet simultaneously so difficult for the police to detect?"

Of Operation Pentameter in 2006, she said that

"only 84 women and girls...conformed to police and immigration officers' understanding of the term 'victim of trafficking'."

Again, I cite newspaper figures, but I understand that, as a result of Pentameter 2, the figure given everywhere is 18,000, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Minister will confirm it.

It is worrying when we have top professors rubbishing the statistics and the facts. In 2005, the same professor wrote:

"There are places in the world where it is estimated that between 15 and 30 per cent of those working in prostitution are under the age of 18 and that up to 75 per cent of the male population engage or have engaged in prostitution use. In such places, proposals to penalise anyone who buys sex from a minor could translate into proposals to incarcerate half the male population."

That is an extraordinary argument. The professor seems to be giving the green light to our tourist paedophiles.

Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying slightly from the subject.

I am talking about trafficking, Mr. Martlew. I am referring to trafficked women. We have to get the facts and figures right. Since the majority of trafficked women come from the countries to which the good professor refers, I have to make the point. A reductio ad absurdum argument obtains in the mindset of those who argue not for a reduction of sex slave traffic, but for its regulation—indeed, its legalisation.

I am not sure whether the Home Office deals with the English Collective of Prostitutes. We know nothing of its figures or its financing, whom it represents or who controls it, but it argues on its website—I checked this morning—that Government feminists and Christian fundamentalists have joined forces in claiming that prostitution is violence.

Those 18,000 people, according to Pentameter 2, were trafficked into Britain for sexual purposes—they are the prostituted women at the heart of our debate. I therefore state that the use of prostituted women occurs in a context of violence. The Ipswich murders might have been a good example. None of those poor victims were trafficked from outside the UK. Perhaps, as the hon. Gentleman said, they were trafficked within the UK. Trafficking is about what happens inside the UK. It affects the most vulnerable of young girls, many of whom are in care, without parents and without a social framework or other support.

We need to tackle the demand side, as we did with kerb crawling. The original idea of naming and shaming kerb crawlers was rejected as being an interference with the men's right to go up and down a street and, if they wanted, to pick up a woman and take her away in a car to have sex. Such actions were deemed to be acceptable, but councils and local communities nevertheless went out on the streets and named and shamed. Taking the same approach to brothels and massage parlours—and now internet sex and mobile telephone sex—will be an interference in the liberty of the individual, but I am all for it because, if we do not do so, the trade in sex slaves can only increase.

I join the hon. Gentleman in calling for the speedy ratification of the Council of Europe convention. The Government have signed it, but signature is not ratification, as the people of Ireland and the President of Poland know. We need a network of centres in every major conurbation to which these young women feel that they can go. However, they will have to be protected. They have such centres in Belgium, but the pimps patrol around the centres trying to lure the girls out.

We need investment. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the problem of finding funds to allow local authorities to act—although, my goodness, we ask our local authorities to do far too much as it is. I remember when the first women's refuge was opened in Chiswick by Erin Pizzey 40-odd years ago. That was the first in Britain, but thank goodness, there are now many more. In each conurbation, we need a safe refuge for trafficked girls and women.

I ask the Minister to give us some indication of when the Council of Europe convention will be ratified. I ask him also to increase the amount of statistical evidence. I shall not ask him to commit himself to acting on the demand side of sex slavery this morning, but the issue will not go away. I ask him to pay little attention to Professor Julia O'Connell Davidson, who is deeply negative and unhelpful on this issue. I hope that the Minister will confirm that she has not been consulted by the Home Office.

Finally, we need time in the House for a broader debate. This should not be a party issue. It would be a huge interference in the right of the British male to buy sex as he wishes on whatever terms he wishes without being responsible for the prostituted women with whom he has that sex. The men are not going to check whether the girls are 17, 18 or 19—or even 16—or whether they come from Lithuania, Thailand or Cameroon or whether they have been trafficked or are here legally. However, until we deal with the demand side, the supply of sex slaves will never dry up.

It is a pleasure to follow Mr. MacShane, who has made his case powerfully as usual. I will talk later about the problem of prosecutions. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend Mr. Steen for securing another debate on human trafficking. His chairmanship of the all-party group has put human trafficking on the agenda in Westminster and hopefully the media will pick up on that. I welcome the Minister, who I know works extremely hard behind the scenes to achieve action against human trafficking. He is to be congratulated on that.

Slavery was abolished 200 years ago, but it still exists. The trafficking of women and children into this country to work as prostitutes is modern-day slavery. The severity of this harrowing crime is recognised by all. In its press release on Operation Pentameter 2, the Home Office stated that it is

"one of the worst crimes threatening our society".

Chief Constable Dr. Tim Brain, gold commander of Operation Pentameter 2, described people trafficking for sexual exploitation as

"one of the most distressing aspects of serious and organised crime in this country".

That is the view of a hardened police officer.

I will begin by highlighting the experiences of one 14-year-old child from Kenya who was trafficked into this country. She came into the country through one of the major airports with a middle-aged white man. She was a black girl from Kenya. She came in on a passport that did not have her name or photograph on it, but was allowed into the country. She was taken to Liverpool, locked in a house and forced to have sex with numerous men. Luckily, she escaped and is now being looked after by a major charity in this country. How many people who are trafficked into this country never escape and are locked into this modern-day slavery?

One of the problems is that this is a clandestine crime. Complete figures and statistics are hard to determine. Operation Pentameter 2 gathered increased intelligence and highlighted organised crime links across the UK and beyond. It is worth reinforcing the clear differences between Pentameter 1 and Pentameter 2. Under Pentameter 2, 167 victims were identified, compared with 88 under Pentameter 1. Pentameter 2 identified 528 criminals, compared with 232. Furthermore, under Pentameter 2, 822 premises were raided, 6,400 police intelligence reports gathered and more than £500,000 seized. That was in just six months. The clandestine nature of the crime can be seen from the fact that of the 822 premises that were raided, 582 were residential properties while only 157 were massage parlours or saunas.

The Dutch rapporteur on trafficking in human beings came to speak at the all-party group on trafficking of women and children last month. His main task is to report on the nature and extent of human trafficking in the Netherlands and on the effects of anti-trafficking policies. He also provides recommendations to the Government. In seven years, 66 recommendations were approved. The Dutch are far ahead of us on this issue and have much more detailed information, which has led to them having greater success in tackling human trafficking. For example, last year in the Netherlands about 700 victims were identified and there were 200 convictions. That is more than in the United Kingdom. Having a UK rapporteur—or commissioner because I do not like that foreign word—on trafficking in human beings would be a major step towards tackling this abhorrent issue. It would show that the Government are serious about eradicating it.

I will touch on the issue of safe houses for identified victims of people trafficking. Safe houses are a vital tool in rehabilitating victims and improving their chances of living as normal a life as possible. Victims are very vulnerable and need to feel safe and protected. That can be provided by specialised safe houses. To ensure that all victims of human trafficking receive the treatment and care that they need, there must be a revolution in the safe housing that is provided. Non-governmental organisations do a valuable job but the majority of them are not specifically aimed at victims of trafficking and so cannot provide care of a high enough standard.

We should look abroad to find out how other people see us. The "Trafficking in Persons Report" for 2008 produced by the US State Department demonstrates why I feel we need urgent action on this issue. It states that in the UK:

"Out of 888 adult women victims referred to its specialised trafficking shelter, only 181 victims were accommodated by the limited-capacity facilities, with an additional 141 assisted on a non-resident basis only. Some of the remaining 566 victims who were not accommodated at the shelter did not meet all of the Government's criteria for admission. Victims must be over 18; involved in prostitution within three months of referral, willing to cooperate in the prosecution of their traffickers; and must have been trafficked into the UK from abroad. Victims who did not meet these criteria were reportedly referred to other social service agencies, NGOs or to their respective Embassies."

That is how the US sees our position. Of the 888 adult women identified as victims of trafficking and referred for specialised care only 322 were given it, while 566 were passed on to other agencies to be cared for. Surely that is not right. If a victim is referred for specialised care, we should ensure that enough places are available to provide it.

When looking at providing safe housing for victims, one must not forget the needs of child victims of trafficking. In many ways, children are treated worse than adults under the system. I have met Christine Beddoe, the director of ECPAT UK, on many occasions to discuss this issue. There is great concern about the plight of child victims of trafficking once they have been identified. Child victims are put into social care. However, they often disappear from care, sometimes within days or even hours. One can only assume that such vulnerable children, who have been through the most horrific experiences, are recaptured by traffickers and put into slavery again. This problem must be confronted. I urge the Government to provide secure safe housing for child victims of trafficking to ensure that vulnerable, frightened and defenceless children are given a chance to recover from their ordeals.

The Dutch are piloting the idea of having secure accommodation and allowing children to go out with an adult. That means that they are not locked in, but that they are not vulnerable to being picked up by traffickers again. That is a positive move that the Government could look at.

But costly.

As the chairman of the all-party group reminds me, that move would be costly, but we are talking about the most horrendous crime. It would not be a bad idea to pilot the measure to see how successful it is. I think that there would be more chance of securing prosecutions against traffickers if reassurance could be given to vulnerable children like the 14-year-old girl who was trafficked from Kenya. Such a move might result in more people being put behind bars.

I know that time is getting on, Mr. Martlew. I will finish by 11.50.

May I ask one question before my hon. Friend finishes? Does he agree that we should give the Minister plenty of time to wind up because we have raised a number of points? He is giving an excellent speech, but I hope that other hon. Members who speak—

Order. If there were fewer interventions, the Minister would have more time.

I shall take that advice from my hon. Friend the chairman of the all-party group and throw my speech away.

The right hon. Member for Rotherham mentioned the problem of prosecution. I congratulate the police on using the Al Capone method of putting the traffickers behind bars. Because of the difficulties of the 2003 Act, the police have sought to prosecute people under different criminal legislation. People are being put away, but not necessarily for human trafficking, so the Government could look quite seriously at the wording of the 2003 Act, which was described by Chief Constable Dr. Tim Brain as "a bit lumpy". Perhaps he was referring to section 57, which refers twice to "intent". It is difficult to prove intent under English law, so the Government should look again at the measure. We might get more prosecutions if the law was easier to apply.

I know that the Government and the Minister are working hard, and that other parts of Government are pulling the other way. The Minister can be assured that Members of this House want to see action against modern-day slavery. Two hundred years since its abolition in this country, we must bring slavery to an end.

I make no apology for focusing on prostitution in this debate. Let me quote Sigma Huda, who is the UN special rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children. She said:

"For the most part, prostitution as actually practised in the world usually does satisfy the elements of trafficking...states parties with legalised prostitution industries have a heavy responsibility to ensure that their legalised prostitution regimes are not simply perpetuating widespread and systematic trafficking. As current conditions throughout the world attest, states parties that maintain legalised prostitution are far from satisfying their obligations".

It is critical that, through law enforcement measures such as Operation Pentameter, we prevent trafficking and protect the victims. To that end, I went last month to look at how the Swedish system operates. The reason why women are such a profitable market is that, frankly, unlike drugs, they can be reused and recycled by the exploiters, which is what happens, so that they make a bigger profit for the organised criminal networks than the drugs that such organisations used to trade.

In Sweden, I spoke to criminal prosecutors, police officers and women in the women's movement. When speaking to the police, I was struck that those who originally felt that the law against the purchase of sexual services would be a problem had become enthusiastic advocates of it. One of the reasons was that the law helped in prosecutions. Because what the customers were doing was unlawful, they could be engaged as witnesses in successful prosecutions of the exploiters. That made a real difference in Sweden. There are fewer prosecutions in Sweden because, according to phone-tap evidence, there is less trafficking of women to Sweden. In turn, that is because, quite simply, the profits are lower. People cannot make the inflated profits that they can make in other countries because of the difficulties that they encounter and because the police have such effective tools to interrupt the purchase of sexual services.

Sexual services are still marketed on the internet in Sweden, as they are around the world, but the law means that traffickers must move women from flat to flat, that they cannot use the same premises frequently, and so on, so their profits are reduced. There has been a substantial interruption to their activities. I praise the Minister for the publicity that he has put out recently, which is going in a similar direction—I am referring to the posters that address men and say, "Walk in as a punter, come out as a rapist." That points out to men that if they pay for sex with a trafficked woman, they are raping her. The risk of that approach, however, is to go down the Finnish route. They have specifically criminalised the purchase of sexual services with trafficked women, but no prosecutions have been brought as a result which, frankly, is a warning that, on its own, such a measure is insufficient, and that there must be a wider law.

[Mr. Greg Pope in the Chair.]

I want to address protection. The POPPY project, the Medaille Trust and other bodies that provide protection for women are essential. However, it is also essential that policing is undertaken with a welfare consciousness. The police should ensure that they protect the women involved. I must say that they do that more with their mouths than with their actions. It is important for both women and children who are trafficked that we see a better effort on that.

I am probably the only Member in the Chamber who has had a major raid—allegedly—focusing on trafficked children in their constituency. I have not yet been able to assure myself that that raid was part of Operation Pentameter—I do not believe that it was. It was in any case profoundly unsatisfactory. Some hundreds of police officers raided 17 addresses in Slough. They claimed to the media that it was an operation to protect victims of child trafficking, and I think there was a substantial element of that, but it seemed to me that the main aim was to impress the media that something was being done. Nine of the 10 children who were taken into care were returned to the care of their families within 24 hours and the briefing of the media was so inappropriate that photographs in which the children were easily identifiable were published by the newspapers. I took the issue up with the Press Complaints Commission and discovered that, effectively, the media were not reminded of their obligations to protect those children and were not advised that they should hide their identity. There is no mechanism by which each of the children can be given a guardian, which ECPAT rightly argued for. Even if the case is interesting and shows a blurring of lines between exploitation within and without a family, which I suspect is what happened to a large extent, we share responsibility for child welfare. If each of those children had been given a right to a publicly appointed guardian, they could have been protected much more effectively than otherwise.

Despite the concerns of Mr. Steen, there is profound evidence that the Swedish approach has reduced the extent of people trafficking into that country. If we take an approach that goes for prevention and protection, and that specifically protects children, we would make more of a difference than we have been able to make so far.

I congratulate Mr. Steen on securing the debate. He has raised the issue in other forums and will continue to do so. We have heard a number of different takes on it from right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken, some of which I will mention.

Let me say at the beginning that the Government deserve praise for the action that they have taken and for the direction in which they are going. However slow and hesitant they have been in taking action in the past few years, they have done more than any other Government on the issue. We know that they are planning to take further steps, and we hope that that will happen sooner rather than later.

However, there is more to be done. There have been roughly only 70 convictions for trafficking under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, despite the two Pentameter operations. There are no simple answers, as I am sure the Minister will say when he responds. We need to look carefully at experience in the UK and in other countries, and hon. Members have touched on the conflict over the lessons that we should learn. If we are to tackle trafficking and the downside of prostitution, should we legalise prostitution, as has been done in the Netherlands, New Zealand and some US states? Would that bring prostitution into the open, making it much easier to control the worst aspects and help those involved? Alternatively, do we take the Swedish route and criminalise at least the purchase of sex, although the distinction between purchasing and selling is a little like splitting hairs or counting angels on a pinhead? Which example should we learn from? Passionate arguments are made by people on both sides.

If we look at other countries, we can also learn how to deal with the freed victims of trafficking, although, again, the messages are perhaps conflicting. The Government are criticised for their predilection for deporting victims and treating them as criminals. For example, they prosecuted an under-age Vietnamese boy found cultivating the crop in a cannabis factory who had been trafficked into this country as slave labour. They have also been criticised for deporting women and children who have been trafficked into the sex industry. Alternatively, should we give those people special immigration status? The Government have argued over the past year or two that such a solution would not be simple, because it could create a pull factor that draws people into the country and a loophole that they can use to gain legitimate status. We can learn from what other countries have done in that respect.

In his opening comments, the hon. Gentleman said that the issue had dominated debate in this country for only about three years and that it was quite a recent phenomenon. Back in 2002, as a new Member of Parliament, however, I went with UNICEF to Thailand and the Republic of Laos to look at the trafficking of children for forced labour in factories and domestic work and for the sex trade. Thailand is significant in that it was one of the top five countries of origin among those who were referred to the POPPY scheme following Operation Pentameter, and we can learn from what the Thai Government and UNICEF did in this case. The children came predominantly from the Republic of Laos, which is a very poor country; indeed, it is very similar, although even worse in terms of poverty, to the eastern European countries that are a source of trafficking, as hon. Members have mentioned. The Thai Government, under pressure from UNICEF, realised that if they simply deported back to Laos everybody they freed from brothels and factories in Thailand, they would soon come back over the border, either willingly or unwillingly.

We looked at cases in which the Thai Government had educated and retrained children who had been freed in police raids for up to a year before taking them back to Laos. The idea was that those children would return to Laos with skills so that they could set up small businesses and have a different lifestyle. However, when we went to the village where one of these girls came from in Laos, which is the poorest country in the world, we saw that her family lived in a breeze-block shanty. There was nothing in the door or the windows, which were just holes in a breeze-block wall. There was one electric light bulb on the end of a long cable, which the family moved from room to room to use. The lesson was that whatever education and retraining these girls were given, many would quickly find their way back across the border because of the attraction of Thailand. Some would then move on to Europe and perhaps England, just as girls who "escape" the absolute poverty of some eastern European countries do. We can therefore learn a lot from the experience of other countries, but we can also learn a lot about how difficult it is to come up with answers. There are no simple answers, and I am sure that the Minister will refer to that, as I said.

Pentameter 2, and Pentameter 1 before it, have shown that successful action can be taken if it is a police priority. Of course, the police have lots of competing priorities. Terrorism has emerged as a major priority, just as knife crime has in the past few weeks and months—there is a constant cycle of such issues. However, something like trafficking is below the radar and below most people's perception of what is going on, so there needs to be a strong lead from the Government—as Operation Pentameter showed—if the issue is to become a police priority. We have seen in this country and in other countries what a push we need from Governments to tackle this issue. One of the great factors in Sweden's success—in so far as what they are doing in Sweden is a success—is that they have not only made purchasing sex a crime, but given the police a lot of extra resources and told them that they must make enforcing the law on this issue a top priority. Laws can be passed, but whether they are enforced is another matter.

Sweden also puts a lot of resources into social services and into providing back-up for women who were involved in prostitution to help them take up alternative lifestyles. Something similar is being done on a small scale in Ipswich, following the terrible murders of five prostitutes there. The local police and social services have run a major programme to get women off the streets by providing housing and drug rehabilitation and by helping women into jobs and education so that they can take up alternative lifestyles. A whole package of measures is needed.

I hope that the Minister will tell us what the detailed lessons of Operation Pentameter and the visits to countries such as the Netherlands and Sweden are and what package the Government will introduce in this country. We are 10 months—nearly a year—on from the end of the operation, but what lessons have the Government learned? When will they publish their findings? What do they plan to roll out across the UK based on that experience?

What will the Government do about victims who can currently stay four weeks, or 16 weeks if they co-operate with the authorities? In 2006, a Home Office Minister responded to a question by saying that there were no plans to give victims special immigrant status. However, if the Government are to ratify the Council of Europe convention by the end of the year, as they have said they will, they will have to create some form of special immigration status for victims of trafficking who are freed as a result of police action.

The POPPY scheme is very good, but it can take only 25 people at a time. Will the scheme be rolled out across the country? If it is, will it be adequately resourced or will it just be left to existing local police and social services budgets to pay for the implementation of Pentameter and the POPPY system? Will any such scheme be based on the Dutch example of the four safe houses in Amsterdam? Such safe houses have personal guardians, 24-hour on-duty care, chaperones to take children out so that they cannot be picked up by traffickers on the streets and 24-hour CCTV monitoring of the surroundings. In the Netherlands, only 8 per cent. of freed children subsequently go missing, which is much better than the record in this country. A UNICEF report noted that 183 of the 330 child victims of trafficking whom the police found in this country later went missing. Where do these children go? What research are the Government doing through local authorities into where these children go and how we can combat the problem?

What are the lessons for sentencing policy from Pentameter and the surrounding research? Respondents to Government consultations have said that there should be a heavy minimum sentence as well as a maximum sentence and that it should be linked to deportation and a ban on re-entry following completion of the sentence. Is that the way that the Government plan to go? What are the lessons for the provision of legal assistance and immigration advice to the women and children who are caught up in trafficking and whose identities are revealed as a result of operations by police and social services?

What lessons from Pentameter do the Government therefore intend to implement? When will they implement them? Will they implement in full UNICEF's recommendations from March 2008 and the recommendations in the October 2007 report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights?

Like others, I pay tribute to the consistent work done by my hon. Friend Mr. Steen to bring this subject to the forefront of debate. I pay tribute to him not least because, as he rightly said, the House now debates this subject regularly, and we can use these debates to push the Government in the direction that all of us, including the Minister, want them to go. There is clearly no division between Members on either side of the Chamber when it comes to condemning the trafficking of women and children, sexual and labour exploitation and the range of criminal activities associated with those vile crimes. We should also pay tribute to the work of those involved in Pentameter 2 and to those police forces outside the framework of Pentameter 2 that conduct successful operations against trafficking.

As I have said, debates such as this are useful in encouraging the Government further in the direction in which I know the Minister wants to travel. We have had an interesting and powerful debate about trafficking in relation to prostitution, which is a significant part of the total debate, but not all of it. Even in the past hour we have heard powerful arguments on both sides. Fiona Mactaggart pointed out the success of the Swedish approach of criminalising the purchase of sex, but we have also heard from my hon. Friend Mr. Bone that the Dutch are quite successful in combating trafficking—more successful than we are—but that they have much more liberal laws on prostitution. Clearly the Government need to gather more evidence before coming down on one side or other of the debate.

A particularly powerful point was made by Mr. MacShane when he talked about the illegitimacy of certain types of behaviour—

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

I shall continue paying the compliment before I give way. The right hon. Gentleman was exactly right in what he said about the best way of reducing such behaviour, particularly—and this is something for the Government to consider—in the context of newspaper, especially local newspaper, adverts, which still, after so much debate over many years, continue to carry adverts for brothels, more or less openly advertising that they have a constant inflow of new women from abroad, who are therefore very likely to have been trafficked. It is extraordinary that newspapers continue to do that. Any newspaper man in this country would be horrified to discover that his newspaper carried thinly disguised adverts for drug runners or gun runners. Yet they continue with advertising of the kind that I have described, which I am sure we all find vile.

I am grateful for that last point. I hope that the Newspaper Society will read the hon. Gentleman's words and act on them, because it can take action. I want to put it to him, however, that the rate of trafficking of women and girls into Holland is proportionately higher than the rate of trafficking into the UK, according to the statistics. It is true that more are arrested, but the level of trafficking is higher because the demand is not dealt with, and legalising prostitution never deals with demand. It cannot slow down trafficking.

The right hon. Gentleman may be right. We will see over time whether the success of the Dutch authorities in combating trafficking leads to a reduction in demand. However, there are decent and sensible arguments on both sides of the debate, and I know that the Government are considering them.

Another aspect of the matter that I hope the Minister will deal with in his remarks, and which other hon. Members have brought up, is the extraordinary paucity and inadequacy of the statistics. Many questions have been asked and my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes made the point that he had helpfully put some questions in writing as long ago as last night, to allow the Minister to consider them. To provide an example of a question that has received an answer, I asked last month what estimate the Home Office had made

"of the number of men and boys trafficked into the United Kingdom for suspected involvement in the sex industry".

The Minister replied:

"To date there has been no estimate made of the number of men and boys trafficked into the UK for the purposes of sexual exploitation."—[Hansard, 2 July 2008; Vol. 478, c. 908W.]

I do not expect completely accurate figures, because obviously the area is surrounded by criminality, but I find it slightly extraordinary that the Government cannot even give an estimate of that very important subset of trafficked people. That shows the wider problem—that until we have more accurate information, it will be difficult to get more adequate policy in this context.

Another point that others have touched on, which it is important for the Government to consider, is that in the wake of Pentameter, and now Pentameter 2, we have reached the point at which anti-trafficking operations should be a permanent part of policing, and not a series of discrete operations. Detective Chief Superintendent Kinsella of the UK Human Trafficking Centre told the Select Committee on Home Affairs that

"part of our role at the UK Human Trafficking Centre is actually to invent this as core business across the Police Service".

The Minister will also be aware of the comments of Chief Superintendent Phillipson of Cambridgeshire police who said publicly a few months ago:

"There are no Home Office targets for this kind of police work".

He continued:

"This is rape and sexual abuse, happening on a daily basis, but it is unreported crime. I won't achieve any reduction in crime statistics by closing brothels...But, quite frankly, I don't care. As far as I'm concerned this is what police work is about and I know that it's the right thing to do."

Everyone involved in the debate this morning will agree with the chief superintendent and will, I hope, press the Minister to move the issue up the list of police priorities.

The Minister will be aware of other evidence to the Select Committee, from Chief Constable Maxwell, of the UK Human Trafficking Centre, who said that in some countries further away from Europe there were problems with co-operation and the sharing of information and, in the most serious cases, corruption and infiltration by criminal gangs in the national authorities responsible for dealing with trafficking. I hope that the Minister can impress on his Foreign Office colleagues that a willingness to fight and disrupt trafficking must be impressed on countries as a priority as part of our foreign policy. The Foreign Office and, indeed, other Departments will deal with the relevant Governments on the negotiation of treaties, business deals and intelligence sharing, and I hope that the British Government are now making it clear across the globe that the fight against trafficking is a serious priority for them.

We have inevitably heard a lot this morning about the signature and ratification of the Council of Europe convention on trafficking. The Minister is very aware of its history. The Conservatives called on the Government to sign the convention in January last year. They did so a few months later, which we welcomed. At the beginning of this year, since there had been a fairly deafening silence about ratification, we called on the Government to ratify it. The last public statement that we had from them was that it would be ratified by the end of the year. I hope that at the very least the Minister can repeat that assurance this morning and if possible agree that the date can be brought forward.

I am conscious that the Minister made the point that there are difficulties. In a debate in Opposition time on 16 January he told the House that the Government

"need to make four or five pages of legislative changes if we are to ratify the convention."—[Hansard, 16 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 1002.]

Obviously, subject to caveats about looking at the details, we would want to support that legislation and get it through as fast as possible. Can the Minister tell us today whether secondary legislation can be used, or whether primary legislation will be required? If primary legislation is needed, how and when will it be passed? For instance, the Department is drafting an enormous new immigration Bill for inclusion in the Queen's Speech, which we shall not get until December. Clearly it will be extremely lengthy and will include many controversial elements. I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurance that the particular narrow legislation that is needed for the ratification of the convention will not be wrapped up in a larger and more controversial Bill. Inevitably that will delay ratification.

The Minister will be aware that, quite apart from the very important legislative aspects of the matter, we have proposed a number of practical measures that would make a real difference to this country's performance in combating trafficking. We have for some time proposed the establishment of an integrated border police force, and I am sure that the Minister welcomed the details of the Stevens report that we issued last week. We said that there should be separate interviews at all airports for women and children travelling alone with an adult who is not a parent, guardian or husband, to identify potential victims. We suggest that immigration officials should check the date on the return ticket of the adult accompanying minors, to look for discrepancies, and we have said that there should be much better co-ordination between Government Departments than has been happening until now. We also think that each police force and local authority should have a strategy for dealing with suspected victims of trafficking.

There are many issues for the Minister to address in the time remaining, not the least of which is that one of the great things that Pentameter revealed is the sheer scale of the trafficking problem and the slightly half-hearted nature of the response so far. We need a permanent police effort; we should already have ratified the convention; and Ministers must explain why, when many thousands of trafficked women live in fear in this country, there are safe places for only about 70. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will address those issues.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Pope. I congratulate Mr. Steen on securing another Adjournment debate on this important issue. Other Members have congratulated him, and I join in those congratulations.

I pay tribute to the work done on this matter by Mr. Bone, as well as by my hon. Friend Fiona Mactaggart and my right hon. Friend Mr. MacShane, who have contributed significantly to the debate. I also thank the Liberal Democrat and Conservative spokesmen for the measured way in which they made their points. It is an extremely important matter to us all. If we continue to try to achieve unity of purpose, we might make more significant progress than we sometimes do. I congratulate the police and all the agencies involved—the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre, the UK Border Agency and the Serious Organised Crime Agency—on their work on Operation Pentameter 2, which involved not just the police, but a wide range of organisations.

I will try to rattle through many of the points raised, although not necessarily in the order that they were raised, and to answer some of the specific questions. The Government will ratify the Council of Europe convention by the end of the year. That will not require any more primary legislation. We accomplished one part of it during the summer in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, and one or two small pieces of secondary legislation are necessary to deal with some of the health aspects. I confirm that we are on track to ratify, that no primary legislation will be needed and that some small points can be dealt with by secondary legislation.

As hon. Members have said, Operation Pentameter 2 identified 176 victims, 13 of whom were children. Some 582 criminals were arrested and 822 premises were visited, of which 157 were massage parlours and 582 residential properties. I will return to the matter of residential properties in a moment. Five victims of forced labour were also rescued, three of whom were children. Although we concentrate, rightly, on trafficking for purposes of sexual exploitation and on child trafficking, we must remember that we know even less about trafficking for forced labour than about some other issues. We need to do more on that, and we will.

The hon. Member for Totnes asked me to confirm that trafficking is everywhere. Pentameter 2 involved 582 residential properties, which made it significantly different from Pentameter 1 in terms of where victims were found and where intelligence led the police to conduct their operations. You might say that it was down your street, Mr. Pope. Significant numbers in all areas of the country were involved. It is not just an issue for some parts of some cities; it is significant for every area.

A regional breakdown is available. In the south-west, 65 premises were visited, of which 56 were residential and nine were massage parlours, and 54 suspects were arrested. The hon. Gentleman asked about the seizure of criminal assets. Assets were seized across the country, but in his area, the south-west, £158,300 in cash was seized. Again, figures broken down area by area are available.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about victim engagement. Of the 154 adult victims identified, 22 are in support and 31 have been voluntarily returned. I want to deal with this point, because it goes to the heart of the problem and is a public policy challenge recognised by every Member who takes an interest in the issue. It is one thing to send in police to rescue victims; it is quite another to build up those victims' confidence and trust to the point where they will work with the authorities and police. That is a huge problem.

Many of the people offered support will not take it, and we should try to understand why. That has to do with deception, fear and intimidation in their own country and, particularly with respect to the Chinese, who made up a significant part of the nationalities rescued, it has to do with debt bondage. We must understand those issues if we are to do something about the problem. Of course, we must ensure that welfare services are available, but even when they are, it is sometimes difficult to encourage people to come forward.

Hon. Members said that trafficking should be core police business. That is essential. On convictions, 100 people have been charged so far. There have been 20 convictions, and many other cases are ongoing. Hon. Members may be interested to know the nationalities of the 167 victims. There were 55 from continental EU states, 81 from China and south-east Asia, five from South America, one from the Indian subcontinent and four from non-EU European countries. I point out that 47 Chinese nationals were rescued; it is a growing problem that we will need to deal with. There were 27 from Thailand and 21 from Romania. There were victims of other nationalities as well, but those are the ones that I am looking at.

Hon. Members will realise that I will not be able to answer all their questions; I apologise. I will deal with two: the demand review, and child trafficking and safety, which many hon. Members mentioned. Child trafficking is a real problem, not only in rescuing children, but in keeping them safe once they are in the care of the state.

When I was in Amsterdam considering the demand review, as my hon. Friend the Member for Slough mentioned, I spoke to the Dutch Government. Hon. Members may know that the Dutch Government provide four 12-bed units. Clearly, many more children than that are trafficked there, as they are in our own country. Each child has individuals responsible for them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The area is patrolled; that is perhaps the wrong word, but there are people around outside all the time. The children are not allowed out unaccompanied. Given all that—I take the point made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough—children still go missing. Fewer do so, but children still unscrew windows and do all sorts of things to get away from the authorities.

The hon. Gentleman was also right to talk about more secure accommodation. Clearly, we cannot lock up children who have done nothing and are victims, but we must find a way to ensure that rescued children are kept in a more secure environment. It is a difficult problem, even within the Dutch Government model, which has been referred to.

On demand, we have not yet come to any conclusions, but we are considering what to do. We understand that demand for prostitution results in many people being trafficked into prostitution, so we need to do something about that. Even Holland, which is held up as the liberal alternative, is extremely concerned about the impact that its laws have on trafficking. That is why Holland is shutting some licensed premises and managed areas and even considering making it a criminal offence to purchase sex outside the licensed and regulated sector.

I apologise to hon. Members; huge numbers of other points could be made in the debate. I will talk to hon. Members outside this Chamber, so that we can take the debate forward.