1. Will the Leader of the House make a statement on Welsh Government efforts to tackle modern slavery? OAQ52542

Diolch. We are determined to do all we can to make Wales hostile to slavery. In April, we had the first prosecution in the UK for county lines using modern slavery legislation. This saw two men jailed for trafficking a vulnerable woman from London to Swansea to sell heroin.

Thank you very much for that response. Modern slavery, of course, is an immoral crime, which is affecting some of the most vulnerable people in our communities and those who are most open to exploitation. I’ve had contact with a number of organisations in north Wales—Haven of Light is one of them—working to raise awareness and to support victims. I’ve had discussions with the local council, and had discussions with North Wales Police. I know that they have been very prominent in developing one of only four modern slavery units, and others are following their lead. Now, in the national modern slavery partnership meeting in Birmingham last week, I understand that there was great emphasis on working across statutory agencies, non-governmental organisations and business. So, my question is, simply: what steps are the Welsh Government taking to encourage that sort of collaboration across various sectors, which can make a difference in this area?

The Member is absolutely right there. It's a hidden, complex and completely intolerable crime, against which we must work very hard. We are, of course, the first, and remain the only country in the UK, to have appointed an anti-slavery co-ordinator, and established the Wales anti-slavery leadership group to provide that strategic leadership and guidance on how we tackle slavery. That is the point of that. We absolutely accept the Member's premise that without working across the statutory agencies, we have much-reduced chances of actually finding and protecting the vulnerable people and prosecuting the people who put them into that position. And so it's absolutely about working with partners, but delivering consistent standards of anti-slavery training to almost 8,000 people across Wales. That is the exact purpose of that, in order to make sure that we have a consistent approach across all of our agencies that are engaged together in combating this terrible crime.

There is evidence of forced labour in hand car washes, and it's believed to be growing from 10,000 to 20,000 businesses in the UK, and many of those are unregulated. We know that the UK Government has launched a hand car wash inquiry last April, and the main goal is to look at, principally, environmental impacts and the regulations that govern hand car washes, but it is also going to look at how the UK Government is meeting its obligation to reduce human exploitation under the UN sustainable development goals. Leader of the house, will the Welsh Government consider launching a similar inquiry that focuses on the regulation of such industries, and their link to human trafficking and exploitation?

It's a very interesting inquiry. We are co-operating with the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority in their input into that inquiry, and of course we will be looking with great interest to see what the outcome of the inquiry report is, and to see what lessons we can learn in Wales. We have a very open mind about what might lead on from that, once they've completed the report.

Obviously, I acknowledge the Welsh Government's interest in this and, actually, the hard work of Joyce Watson on this matter for some considerable period of time, but I'd be quite interested in hearing a little bit more about specific activity between the two Governments, if you like, since Theresa May introduced this Act in 2015. As Rhun mentioned, many agencies are involved in identifying and helping other people identify what modern slavery is, but have you had any evidence yet that suggests that the co-ordinator is helping police forces here in Wales to tackle this crime in a consistent way—that's my main question—but whether that's then cascaded down, to use those dreaded words, to some of the agencies we were talking about earlier?

Yes. We've been conducting, as I said in answer to Rhun ap Iorwerth and Joyce Watson—we have input into a large number of agencies all over the place, via the anti-slavery co-ordinator. And we've been doing the awareness raising and training to increase awareness, if you like. And one of the reasons that we think that that's working is that referrals are increasing—so, they've increased from 34 in 2012 to 193 in 2017. We've had 53 referrals in the first few months of this year, for example, and we believe that that activity is directly related to the increased working together, and the awareness raising, and the consistent approach that we've been advocating, if you like. So, it's essential: for example, we're working with partners to tackle the county lines criminals. I'm sure you'll all have seen reports in various press and media about that. The National Crime Agency and police are working with us to tackle online sex-for-sale—it's very hard to say—websites. So, absolutely, we work absolutely across the board, and this is not a crime that's confined within any kind of boundary—it's absolutely essential to work in as wide a way as possible, with all of the agencies who might become involved in this terrible crime.