Today the Home Office trumpet their "great success" in the battle against smugglers, forgers and traffickers. Yet the numbers do not support the case being made by the Government. Labour has seen no notable success on border security during these last 13 unlucky years and Labour's record on human trafficking is poor.
In Parliament last Summer, a Minister stated that in the last five years, 568 arrests of human traffickers had been made, but resulted in just 114 convictions. A conviction rate of 20% is low - especially when you consider there is generally a victim involved who could give evidence
In Dover we have some idea of why this is. An example of a total mess in tackling human trafficking is this case reported in the Dover press and I'm told it's not unusual. There seems to be a lack of effective joined up Government and the Crown Prosecution Service seems not to be as effective as it could be. Our Border Officers also tell me their ability to act is limited by Labour's "Human Rights" legislation. Human Traffickers have rights too, apparently. The Home Office also lectures Border Officers on how they must treat their "customers" ever so nicely under the Border Agency's "Proud to Serve and Protect" programme.
Border Officers are particularly annoyed by the "target culture". They tell me that one month they did really well on heroin, but failed to find enough bushmeat. Were they congratulated for their success in keeping hard drugs off our streets? No - they were castigated for not getting enough bushmeat. It didn't matter that the smugglers fail to smuggle in line with Labour's targets. The Border Officers were expected to hit the targets no matter what.
We need to be doing better on the evil of human trafficking. And assist our Border Officers in keeping our nation secure, giving them the tools and support they need to do a very difficult job. This is why a Border Police Force would make such a positive difference to our borders and the security of our nation.
