Vernon Coaker

Rights Lab Visiting Professor of Politics and Policy

Lord Vernon Coaker works as part of the Rights Lab's Law and Policy Programme on modern slavery and local, regional, national and international policy. This includes a focus strategies to help protect children from trafficking (including in the area of county lines), on the role of businesses and of international cooperation in tackling modern slavery, and on the delivery of policy-relevant research. His work within the Rights Lab has also included launching and chairing a new Midlands Antislavery Research Collaborative (the Midlands ARC) that brings together academics from 19 universities across the Midlands. He was MP for Gedling, Nottinghamshire from 1997 to 2019, holding ministerial roles and opposition ministerial roles that included Minister of State for Policing, Crime and Security, Minister of State for Schools, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, and Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. From 2015 to 2019, he was Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery. He is currently a member of the UK House of Lords.