Incident relating to Holyhead Port

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:31 pm on 23 October 2019.

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Photo of Mark Isherwood Mark Isherwood Conservative 3:31, 23 October 2019

Of course, I share your sentiments and pass on my condolences to the families of these people who've suffered a terrible, terrible experience, whatever their motivations in coming here might have been. It's actually several years since I first raised in this Chamber a concern raised with me that Holyhead was a soft spot for people smuggling into the UK. Haven of Light, a non-profit organisation focused on prevention, awareness-raising and support for survivors of modern slavery and human trafficking in north Wales, told me in May that they'd never been able to find any real answers as to whether or not the crossing from Ireland to Holyhead and vice versa are safe, though what they're being told by members of the public and senior clergy is that there are often suspicions that people are being brought into the UK by the ferries at Holyhead. They'd previously told me that the main smuggling lines through Holyhead came from eastern Europe, particularly Romania and Bulgaria, and also from Vietnam, and they also told me that they were told last October that Holyhead was now sorted.

Kevin Hyland OBE, the United Kingdom's first Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, having previously been the head of the London Metropolitan Police's human trafficking unit, told me that cases referred in Wales last year included, specifically, 10 victims from Vietnam. He now works for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe on support for victims and survivors, and is Ireland's representative on the Council of Europe's group of experts on action against trafficking in human beings. He also speaks at the UN Security Council on these matters. And, again, he told me personally that across the UK and globally, denial around the issue of what human trafficking manifests itself as is paramount. He said that there's too much back-slapping, when 99.6 to 99.7 per cent of victims are missed across the world, and only 0.35 per cent of perpetrators were convicted last year globally.

So, I've got two questions: one, would you be willing, or with appropriate colleagues, to meet Kevin Hyland, who is perhaps the leading global expert on this matter, who is very eager to engage with the Welsh—[Inaudible.]—and Welsh Government on this matter? And, in the shorter term, perhaps you can give a quicker answer: what dialogue has the Welsh Government's own anti-slavery co-ordinator had with Stena Line and Irish Ferries, not just today or since this tragic news, but over recent months and years since this soft spot was first highlighted?