(9 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Rosser
“Establishment and function of the National Referral Mechanism
(1) The Secretary of State must establish a National Referral Mechanism (“NRM”) to—
(a) identify trafficked, enslaved or exploited persons within the United Kingdom;(b) provide assistance and support to a person who may have been trafficked, enslaved or exploited from the time at which that person is first referred into the NRM until such time as a final and conclusive determination is made that they are not such a person; and (c) ensure that the rights of such persons are protected and promoted in a manner which discharges the Government’s obligations under the Trafficking Convention and the Trafficking Directive regarding the identification and protection of victims, including measures for assistance and support.(2) The Secretary of State must, in regulations, specify the procedures to be followed to implement the NRM and the procedures to be applied by the NRM including to give effect to the right to a renewable residence permit provided for under subsections (5) and (6).
(3) The regulations must provide for a right of appeal by an individual in respect of a decision in the NRM process that they are not a trafficked, enslaved or exploited person.
(4) An adult must give their free and informed consent to being referred into the NRM before a referral is made on their behalf.
(5) A person who is determined in the NRM process to be a trafficked, enslaved or exploited person shall be entitled to a one-year renewable residence permit permitting them to remain in the United Kingdom where one or other, or both, of the following situations apply—
(a) a competent authority in the NRM considers that their stay is necessary owing to their personal situation; or(b) a competent authority in the NRM considers that their stay is necessary for the purpose of the person’s co-operation with the authorities in connection with their investigations or criminal proceedings.(6) A residence permit for child victims shall be issued where it is in accordance with the best interests of the child and, where appropriate, renewed under the same conditions.
(7) The protection, assistance and support provided to trafficked, enslaved or exploited children (including those to whom the presumption of age applies) in accordance with the provisions in this Act shall be at least equivalent to the protection, assistance and support provided to adults, save that where other legislation provides for greater protection for children that legislation shall, to the extent of any inconsistency with this Act, prevail.”
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 86P is in substitution for Amendment 86N. The difference is in proposed new subsection (4). Amendment 86N refers to:
“A person (including a child)”.
Amendment 86P refers to “an adult”. This amendment was not meant to include a child. That is the difference between the two amendments.
The purpose of our amendment is to put the national referral mechanism on a statutory footing with its overriding role and objectives laid down in respect of persons trafficked, enslaved or exploited within the United Kingdom, including the right of appeal by an individual against a decision in the national referral mechanism process that they are not a trafficked, enslaved or exploited person. Despite the views to the contrary expressed by a majority of interested parties who participated in a recent Home Office internal review of the national referral mechanism, the Government have not been prepared to go down the road of placing the NRM on a statutory footing as it would, in their view, make it inflexible and unresponsive to changing demands.
No doubt that might be a problem if all the detail about the role and operation of the NRM were included in the Bill, but that is not what we are proposing. We are talking about the key principles and functions that the NRM should be seeking to address and deliver in respect of victim identification and support. The Joint Committee on the draft Bill recommended that the Bill should be amended to give statutory authority for the national referral mechanism in order to ensure greater consistency in its operations, decision-making and provision of victim support services. The committee went on to say that the statutory basis should also provide for a mechanism for potential victims to trigger an internal review and to appeal against decisions taken by competent authorities.
Among the arguments that, as I understand it, led the Joint Committee to make its recommendation were that the current arrangements led to arbitrariness of application and access for victims; that giving victims statutory rights would make claiming and enforcing those rights more straightforward; that a statutory footing gave greater transparency and accountability and would also raise awareness of the national referral mechanism among front-line agencies; and that having the NRM on a statutory basis would provide an opportunity to establish a clear review and appeals process compared to the present system of informal requests for decisions to be reconsidered. While judicial review offers a more formal route, it can be used only to challenge the way a conclusion has been reached rather than the merits of the conclusion, and judicial review is also likely to be expensive.
Since placing the NRM on a statutory footing should increase awareness and accountability within the system, it would also help to ensure that victim identification and assistance is prioritised across the board. The evidence suggests that the NRM is underused and is not as widely known about as one might expect. Many involved in dealing with victims of trafficking and modern-day slavery regard referral to the NRM as a non-mandatory process on which there is no training or scrutiny of decisions to not refer, even for children within the child protection system. Without a statutory underpinning of victims’ rights to identification and specialist support there is more than a possibility that practitioners will either continue to disregard the national referral mechanism entirely or see it solely as best practice as opposed to something to which victims have a right.
Referral into the national referral mechanism can be pretty significant for victims. Those who have a positive NRM decision may have a higher likelihood of a prosecution against them being dropped if they have been trafficked and forced to commit a crime, and, in turn, positive NRM decisions are used by police as corroborative evidence in prosecutions against traffickers. Specialist support and accommodation, and access to legal aid, are also often dependent on a positive decision within the NRM.
In the light of this and the significant known increase in the level and extent of trafficking and exploitation since the NRM was established, it is not clear why there is this apparent unwillingness on the Government’s part to place the NRM on a statutory footing and help to ensure that both the underlying principles of the system of victim identification and support, which are already set out in existing international legislation to which the UK is bound, are included in the Bill, and that there is greater accountability for those who fail to assist or refer potential victims of modern slavery for identification.
The preface to the recent review of the national referral mechanism stated:
“Since its introduction in 2009 the National Referral Mechanism has grown somewhat wildly over time”,
and that it is,
“now a complex system operating in a challenging and painful area of public life”,
and,
“a difficult system to grip”.
It stated:
“Many level criticism at the current system and we have found that it does need to change”.
The review drew attention to the fact that the number of potential victims who are referred to the NRM is low, given what we know about human trafficking. It also said that the current system is,
“fragmented and lacking an overall performance framework … and … cannot be described as efficient or effective”.
The review continued, saying that there was,
“insufficient accountability for the outcomes of the process or the appropriate management of the process itself”.
The review also heard the views of the voluntary organisations that work with victims of trafficking, which include calls for the,
“removal of responsibility for the National Referral Mechanism from the Home Office and the establishment of an independent body outside of UK Visas and Immigration and the Police … a desire to place the National Referral Mechanism on a statutory footing”,
and,
“a right of appeal to challenge those decisions which are believed to be wrongly made”.
It is difficult to see how the extensive concerns and recommendations set out at the beginning of the review could be addressed and delivered effectively without putting the NRM or a similar body on a statutory footing and moving away from what seems closer and more akin to an internal administrative process. It is also worth pointing out that while the review was asked to look at six key areas, including governance of the national referral mechanism, it was not specifically asked to examine the issue of placing the NRM on a statutory footing.
The reality is that at the present time some 80% of referrals—I am sure that I will be corrected if I am wrong—on behalf of EU citizens as victims of human trafficking, which are dealt with by the UK Human Trafficking Centre, which is part of the National Crime Agency, are accepted. It is also true, I believe, that some 80% of referrals on behalf of non-EU citizens as victims of human trafficking, which are dealt with by UK Visas and Immigration, which is part of the Home Office, are not accepted. At the very least, decisions on non-EU referrals as victims of human trafficking, which involve issues of UK residence, should be dealt with as a statutory decision by a statutory body.
Our amendment does not in any case go into great detail that might, in the Government’s eyes, leave the NRM inflexible and unresponsive to changing demands, since it primarily sets out the overriding role and objectives of the national referral mechanism, provides for the Secretary of State to seek to specify in regulations the procedures to be followed and applied, and provides for a right of appeal by an individual against a decision that they are not a trafficked, enslaved or exploited person.
Not being on a statutory footing does not seem to be providing an effective and efficient national referral mechanism, in the light of the situation today on the incidence and nature of human trafficking and exploitation in this country. I hope that the Government will be able to respond favourably to our amendment, which I beg to move.
Lord Warner (Lab)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 93, in my name, which adopts an approach similar to that of my noble friend’s Amendment 86P. I agree with what he said. We both agree that we should put the national referral mechanism on a statutory basis, as the Joint Committee recommended. I need to go over some of the same ground as he did, but there are also some other issues that I want to put into play in trying to convince the Government that a statutory basis is the right basis for the NRM.
Before I make my case, I should briefly explain why I am taking an approach different from that of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, in his Amendment 86M, which we discussed on Monday. I agree with him that Clause 48 is totally unsatisfactory, but I am not sure that it is right to put on the face of the Bill as much detail as there was in his amendment. That is why, in my amendment, I have gone for a set of regulation-making powers on given subjects.
My amendment is intended to give effect to the recommendation in the report by the Joint Committee on the draft Bill that the Bill should be amended,
“to give statutory authority for the NRM to ensure greater consistency in its operation, decision-making and provision of victim support services”.
Those are the critical reasons why this mechanism should be not an internal administrative system but one that has clearly been endorsed by Parliament. Our recommendation is clearly stated and set out in paragraph 82 of the Joint Committee’s report. My amendment would not hamstring the Home Office too much—I shall come back to that later.
Instead of laying out a lot of detail in the Bill, my amendment would enable the Home Secretary to make regulations in six key areas, and includes a provision for the inclusion of,
“such other matters as the Secretary of State considers appropriate to the new body”.
This approach to regulation-making gives the Home Office plenty of discretion for adapting the scheme as circumstances require. It does not fix for all time the role or the precise remit of the NRM. If we put a clause of this nature into the Bill, there will be plenty of flexibility in the regulation-making approach,
The six key areas in my amendment are the very ones identified by the Home Secretary as the subject of the Review of the National Referral Mechanism for Victims of Human Trafficking, as summarised in paragraph 2.1.3 of the report. I have not gone for widening the NRM’s role in any way; my amendment covers the topics that the Home Secretary said the review of the NRM had to cover. When Ministers set up that review, they knew that the Joint Committee would be recommending an NRM with a statutory basis. We came to that conclusion before we drafted the report and we informed the Home Office, so it did know that that was the road that we would traverse. There was plenty of opportunity for the Home Secretary to consider that issue in the context of the review. It is striking that, if we read the review fully, we find that it very much makes the case for putting the NRM on a statutory basis.
One point that I would draw attention to is in subsection (3) of my amendment, which gives effect to another Joint Committee recommendation, in paragraph 91 of its report, that,
“competent authority status be removed from UK Visas and Immigration”.
We saw a conflict of interest between determining immigration and asylum status and determining whether someone was a victim of trafficking. I will not detain the House with the evidence for that recommendation, but it is set out very clearly in paragraphs 84 to 90 of the Joint Committee report. The evidence and this amendment are absolutely consistent with the recommendations of the NRM review report at paragraphs 7.4.1 and 7.4.5. The amendment is drafted to be consistent with the findings of that review.
The Joint Committee heard a huge variety of evidence and arguments in favour of making the NRM a statutory-based mechanism, which were very much the same sets of arguments and evidence that was put before the review. We were told by Anti-Slavery International that the current arrangements,
“led to arbitrariness of application and access for victims”.
Others said that giving victims statutory rights would make claiming and enforcing those rights more straightforward and transparent. We were told that a statutory NRM was necessary for the UK to fulfil its international obligations as well as securing the most effective victim identification process.
Let me briefly illustrate the many concerns about a non-statutory NRM with the case of Ms O, who was a victim of trafficking, covered and cited in detail on page 61 of the Joint Committee report. Ms O was effectively kept in custody for nearly a year, despite the fact that people knew that she was a victim of trafficking. That is an appalling outcome for a person who was identified as a victim of trafficking, and that is what took place under a non-statutory-based NRM. All those issues are very clearly set out in the NRM review, which effectively makes the case, as I said earlier, for a statutory-based NRM.
I have spent much of the time in this Committee arguing for the Home Office Ministers and officials to get off the back of the anti-slavery commissioner and widen his remit. The NRM is a subject where the Home Secretary and her officials need to get more involved and design a statutory-based system that provides much more consistency and better identification and support for victims, has more credibility and speed of independent decision-making and is more fit to work alongside an Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. I want the Home Office to get more involved, and I hope that in responding to the NRM review it will have a change of heart and commit to putting the NRM on a statutory basis.
I do not expect every “i” to be dotted and “t” to be crossed on this new system before Royal Assent but, before the Bill leaves this House, I hope that we can agree with the Minister the terms of a new clause that gives the Home Secretary regulation-making powers subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.
Finally, I have deliberately described in my new clause a “National Referral Mechanism replacement”. I do not regard the name, “national referral mechanism”, as particularly clear or helpful, and I would hope that we could find a better title, embracing words such as “slavery”, “victims” and “safeguarding”. How about the “Slavery Victims Safeguarding Authority”? Something along those lines would give a true indication of what this mechanism is actually all about. I support the amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, my Amendment 96 is in this group. I start by saying that I entirely support the idea of the previous speakers that we should have a statutory national referral mechanism, although perhaps with more felicitous wording, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has just suggested.
My proposal is much more modest. The reason for it is this. At the moment we have a very poor double system. There is the UKHTC in Birmingham, which provides, as we have heard, an 80% yes rate to victims, as opposed to the UKVI, which says that only 20% get through. Clearly, that is unacceptable. We also have two reviews from Jeremy Oppenheim which, in my view, are absolutely excellent. As I understand it, the Government have agreed in principle to the fundamental and radical changes that the second, final review has asked for. However, it seems to me that there needs to be some time for consultation, for arranging to get these panels around the country and for arranging how, in fact, a new, better described NRM should work.
My proposal is that the Secretary of State should have the power to make regulations to establish this statutory committee, leaving it to the Home Office to work it out. However, in order to keep them up to the mark, the Secretary of State must report to Parliament within 12 months of the Bill becoming law, in order to say that they will actually do it. At the end of the day, we undoubtedly need a statutory system. But I believe that we need some leeway to work out how it should be. That is why my amendments, in my view, are very modest.
If I may respectfully say so, it would be very unwise of the Government not to listen to this. We have the two reviews of the NRM and we have what the Joint Committee has said, which has been set out so well by the noble Lord, Lord Warner—of course, I was a member of the committee. I totally support the proposals of our Select Committee and of the two reviews. All I am saying is that the Government should have a bit of time to think it over, but not so much time that the matter goes into what is sometimes called the long grass, because this really has to come. The current situation cannot go on for much longer because it is so patently wrong. That has been set out very clearly in the two reviews of the national referral mechanism.
I hope that, at the least, the Government will accept my amendment. I would have no objection to the Government accepting either of the other amendments that have come forward. However, I have no doubt that, one way or another, within the next 12 to 18 months, we will need to have a statutory mechanism for dealing with victim identification and support.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I added my name to the noble and learned Baroness’s amendment for all the reasons that she has given. Never say never; in fact, let us say, “Let’s get on with it”—but let us get on with it in an appropriate way, which must include consultation. Jeremy Oppenheim’s review made very clear the lack of understanding of processes and the variability in standards across the mechanism. I found myself thinking, “Well, no wonder, because it is such a loose process that it is quite difficult to get to grips with”. When I first heard of it, a few years ago, it took me some time to understand just what this was about, given that it is so lacking in obvious governance arrangements and so in need of something against which one could appeal if one was dissatisfied with an outcome.
The two paragraphs—there may be more—of the NRM review that refer to the possibility of a statutory basis do not actually put it out of the question. Paragraph 8.2.14 says that,
“we believe strongly that to put the National Referral Mechanism on a statutory footing now would not guarantee”,
remedying the flawed system. At paragraph 8.3.1, it says:
“Although there is much support for … a statutory footing or providing a right of appeal, these may not be necessary if we have a well governed National Referral Mechanism”.
The prospect is certainly not dismissed by the reviewer.
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, I will contribute briefly to the debate. I hope the Government will take the time to take seriously the NRM review. Jeremy Oppenheim has made some crucial insights, particularly about the 45 days being used as a period for deciding about judicial processes, not a period for nourishment and proper support. Therefore, we need to think very carefully about how we pitch the 45 days or whatever period it is, alongside a commitment to support victims on a longer timescale. He also made an important point about the concept of safeguarding, just referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Warner. I have spoken about this before in the House. It would be very helpful for everybody if we could connect what we are doing about slavery with the culture of safeguarding awareness. I very much support the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Warner, about what we call this mechanism.
Finally, from my experience as someone who works with the agencies and victims themselves, the value of a statutory approach is that it would provide consistency for all victims in the way that they are treated, and a proper, firm framework, which is what we need. Currently, some victims struggle because they are dealt with on the edges. If we are serious about the Bill, we need to have a firm and clear set of expectations and processes.
Lord James of Blackheath (Con)
The Minister is aware that I have some continuing concerns since I withdrew my Amendment 29. Having listened to the debate on this amendment today, there is a word in the amendment that causes me great concern in the context of the story I recounted to the House. The word is “referral”. In the case of my story, referral would have come far too late: the children were in the middle of the Atlantic before anybody could have referred them. Those children could not have referred themselves. They were deposited at the quayside. We did not know who they were or where they came from. They were put on to a boat and they sailed away within three hours. As they could not have referred themselves, they were therefore wholly dependent on the authenticity and legality of some certificate to the effect that they were properly selected and briefed to become migrants. They are lost people, as far as I am concerned—a lost generation. There were 1,760 of them; I have been able to check up since.
Where this clause is wrong goes back to the point that I have been asking the Minister about since I withdrew my amendment. How have we got in here an absolutely legal authority for every child who is put into a migration situation? We have done this regularly about every 20 years for the last 250 years and we need to stop it. We need to outlaw ourselves from doing it any more. That was my concern when I recounted my story and I am not satisfied that the Bill in its present form locks that door once and for all so that we cannot prise it open again and do it.
In the circumstances I described, the travel arrangements could be made under the entire authority of the Australian Government and the Australian civil service in London. The children were coming from local councils that wanted to get rid of them and from orphanages that could not cope with the numbers they had. They put them in a truck and dumped them on the quayside at Tilbury. We put them on a boat and they sailed. Where is a referral going to come in to save those children from that fate? We have not made illegal the act of forced transportation. We have been doing it for 250 years and I am not satisfied yet that this Bill blocks it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, we have had a very good debate on this important area and I will respond to each of the amendments in turn. Effectively, they seem to be almost in grades. It was rather helpful to the House that we almost had revision-max from the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, in his amendment and it progressively got a little bit lighter to the mere enabling which was put forward by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. The points were extremely well made and I will try to respond to them as best as I can.
The first point to make is that it is not quite the no-brainer that people have suggested. The national referral mechanism was set up in 2009 under the previous Government. It was not set up on a statutory footing. Therefore, it clearly was not an obvious omission at that point. We took the view that Clause 48 is adequate. I accept the comments that have been made about whether Clause 48, which refers to the issuing of guidance—by which is meant the national referral mechanism—is adequate. None the less, it is a point of discussion as to whether the flexibility of something not being on a statutory footing is balanced by the other side of having something in the Bill. We will come to that.
The second point to make is that much is rightly made of the good work of the Joint Committee which looked at this, took evidence and made recommendations. The very fact that the Home Secretary committed to a review and asked Jeremy Oppenheim to undertake it clearly reflects the fact that we were not satisfied with the way in which the national referral mechanism was working. That is why Jeremy Oppenheim was asked to undertake the review. A wide range of organisations and individuals were consulted. The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Lord, Lord Warner, were engaged in that process. Some 129 organisations were engaged in the review and their views were fed into the process.
My final point, before turning to the amendments, is that we have a substantial number of recommendations across the six categories as to where the system needs to be significantly improved. The review identifies the weaknesses and deficiencies that many noble Lords have referred to, particularly my noble friend Lady Hamwee.
I am grateful to noble Lords for tabling Amendments 86P, 93 and 96 and for allowing us to follow on from our excellent debate on Monday on the crucial issues of identification and support of victims. I reiterate that the Government share the desire of noble Lords to ensure that as many victims as possible are identified and properly supported. We are already taking decisive action to ensure that that is the case. Amendments 93, 96, and 86P each propose placing a referral mechanism for identifying and supporting victims on a statutory footing, but with slightly different approaches, as I have mentioned. For Amendment 93, this would be a replacement mechanism for the national referral mechanism currently administered by the UK Human Trafficking Centre. Amendment 96 seeks to place an enabling power in the Bill for the Secretary of State to make regulations to establish a statutory referral mechanism. Amendment 86P seeks to place the national referral mechanism on a statutory footing, including providing for all confirmed victims of trafficking, enslavement or exploitation to be entitled to a one-year residence permit.
I believe that the most important thing is that these victims are spotted and rescued in the first place. The best referral and support systems in the world will work effectively only if we find victims, who are so often hidden in plain sight up and down this country. That is why the Home Secretary commissioned a review of the national referral mechanism to ensure that victims can be identified quickly and effectively and be given the right support and assistance. As noble Lords will be aware, the review was published on 11 November and made a number of important recommendations. I know that, in taking the review forward, Jeremy Oppenheim consulted more than 100 organisations and the recommendations from the review take into account their views.
The recommendations in particular concluded that putting the NRM onto a statutory footing,
“will not change the UK’s commitment and obligations to abide by the trafficking convention or methodology with which it is implemented. Any process put on a statutory footing can become inflexible and unresponsive to changing demands and indeed improvements, due to the requirement to further legislate before making changes”.
Furthermore, the review noted:
“Pinning the National Referral Mechanism down now would not be an effective methodology particularly when the National Referral Mechanism is going through a period of significant change”.
It is absolutely right that we should fully consider the vital mechanism used to refer and support these vulnerable victims. But I am not convinced that putting it on a statutory footing will achieve our aim of improving the service we offer to victims. We consider the recommendations made by the review to be transformational and believe that they will overhaul the way in which victims are identified and supported and how those organisations responsible for identifying and protecting victims prioritise and co-ordinate their activities.
The noble Lord, Lord Warner, talked about the difference between the UK trafficking centre giving 80% of cases a positive conclusive grounds decision while UKVI gives only 20% positive decisions. Those figures are not quite right, but it is true that a lower proportion of total referrals have received positive conclusive grounds decisions from the UKVI than from the UKHTC in the past. There is a good reason for the difference. In positive decision rates, UKVI deals with very different cases where corroborative evidence may be harder to obtain. Quality reviews to date indicate that UKVI has been making the right decisions in these difficult circumstances.
The NRM review recommendations include the recommendation to move to multidisciplinary panels to undertake decisions on all cases. This is one of the recommendations that will be widely welcomed. Fundamentally changing the way in which potential victims are referred for support and the way in which decisions are made will ensure that good-quality, timely decisions are at the heart of what we do. That is because the process will have a high level of independent scrutiny and will involve multidisciplinary panels, as suggested.
Our initial response to the review is set out in the modern slavery strategy, which was published on 29 November. Given the fundamental change in approach that is being recommended, we want to make sure that our approach is sound and enhances the experiences of potential victims who are referred for help and support. We will therefore establish two pilots as quickly as possible to test the core recommendations relating to the identification of victims and to the referral and decision-making processes. We want to make sure that we get these pilots right. Officials are meeting a number of NGO representatives later this week to discuss early proposals.
Lord Warner
Will the Minister take away a broader issue when thinking further about this? The way in which this country has dealt with difficult social problems has often started with administrative responses because that is the fastest way of dealing with a more immediate problem. That is why, in 2009, the previous Government started with an administrative system. But if one looks at the field of health—for example, human fertilisation or human tissue issues—at some point or another, the Government of the day have to get into some kind of statutory system. There are whole sets of issues about public accountability and the transparency of the decision-making, and there is an expectation that Parliament will intervene.
This is nothing to do with getting at the Home Office; it is the way we do business in this country. Perhaps the Minister might go back to his colleagues and talk about this. They should ask themselves: has this work in the area of modern slavery got to that point? I suspect it has. When you see the kinds of criticism of the present administrative system in the report, I think it has got to—or is very close to—the point where there will be a public expectation that the Government of the day, whoever they are, will put this system on a more statutory basis. It would be a shame if we missed the opportunity in this Bill to get the drafting such that we could move quickly to put it on to a statutory basis should, as I suspect will happen, that need arises.
Lord Bates
I am grateful to the noble Lord for making that suggestion. That is exactly what we will do. I undertake to take it away and reflect on it. If we come back, it will be more along the lines that he is talking about, where we will set out some broad general principles rather than being too prescriptive. The luxury that we have is because when it was set up by the previous Government, it was not set up on a statutory footing—it was not all in the legislation—and therefore we have been able to undertake this quite fast-paced process of review and recommendation, which will enable us to move far more quickly to fixing the system along the lines that we all want to see.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I would just like to pick up what the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said. It seems to me that the Government could put forward a very general proposition in relation to the national referral mechanism or statutory safeguarding organisation without tying themselves to how it would work. That seems to be the way forward because you would then have the power to put in whatever was appropriate after you had had the pilot schemes, which I am delighted to hear the Government are proposing to do. The important thing is for the Government not to tie themselves too much but to be able to come back and produce whatever is needed in any subsequent legislation, into which one could slip in an appropriate amendment. There will be no shortage of that, I suspect, with a future Government. If I may respectfully say so, something needs to be there to enable the Home Secretary of the day to go forward without having to look for some primary legislation.
Lord Bates
I accept that. I do not want to yield, as it were, to the position of saying that because we are being pressed by distinguished Members, we should give way on this. I have tried to put forward quite a robust argument as to why we have arrived where we have. We have before us a significant review of the national referral mechanism, which seems to address many of the concerns that people have recognised. That review, which everybody was in favour of and many people were involved in, came out against putting it on a statutory footing. We must take that into account but I give the assurance that, in the spirit that we have tried to keep all the way through this Bill, we will look at that very carefully and continue that discussion between now and Report.
Lord Rosser
I thank the Minister for his response and the indication that we can at least continue to discuss this issue, which is very helpful. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, the review argued for a well governed national referral mechanism, so in the light of all the criticisms that it made—no doubt quite rightly—of the present system, it is a question of whether one feels that can be achieved without it being on a statutory basis. I think a lot of people will feel, in the light of those criticisms, that we need to put it on a statutory basis. As the right reverend Prelate said, it would provide consistency and clarity for victims in how they were treated and give a clear framework. I think there is a lot to be said for doing that.
I acknowledge the point the Minister made: when the national referral mechanism was set up in 2009, it was not done on a statutory basis. Equally, the situation in relation to the incidence and nature of human trafficking and exploitation in this country has changed quite dramatically since 2009. Certainly, there has been a bit of an awakening as to what exactly has been going on. I can only repeat what the review said:
“The National Referral Mechanism has grown somewhat wildly over time. It is now a complex system operating in a challenging and painful area of public life”.
That would seem to reflect a view on its part that perhaps the situation has changed since 2009.
There are three amendments in this group, one of which the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, spoke to. That one does not suggest instant action since it refers to the Secretary of State reporting to Parliament within 12 months. I rather sense from some of the comments the Minister made that the biggest drawback to putting this on a statutory basis at the moment appears to be that the Government feel the situation is somewhat fluid with changes to the national referral mechanism, and they therefore feel that this might not be the appropriate time to put it on a statutory footing. I am not entirely clear—and I am not asking the Minister to respond at the moment—whether the Government object in principle to it being on a statutory footing. That is not the way it came over. I felt that the Minister was saying that the situation is fluid in relation to the NRM and this is not the appropriate time to do it. I hope I have not misunderstood him but I welcome his proposal that there should be further discussions about this, which is extremely helpful. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Bichard) (CB)
I should point out that if Amendment 88 is agreed, I will be unable to call Amendment 88A by virtue of pre-emption.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 89 to 92 in this group. These relate to the duty to notify potential modern slavery cases set out in Clause 50.
Modern slavery is a largely hidden crime. If we are to improve our operational response, protect more victims and bring more traffickers and slave-drivers to justice, we need to get a better understanding of the scale and nature of the issue. The duty to notify will help us to achieve this. The government amendments flow from the publication on 11 November of the review of the national referral mechanism which set out wide-ranging recommendations on how the support and identification of victims of trafficking and slavery can be improved. On 28 November the Modern Slavery Strategy was published. It commits to piloting these recommendations with a view to implementation. One of the review’s recommendations is that NRM referrals should no longer be made to the National Crime Agency. Instead, a case-working unit should be set up within the Home Office with decisions on cases being made by regional, multi-agency panels.
Given this change, the NCA is no longer likely to be a suitable central point for the collation of information relating to victims of modern slavery—a function that is likely to sit best with the authority managing NRM referrals, which is likely to be in the Home Office. These amendments therefore change the duty so that rather than notifying the National Crime Agency, specified public authorities will notify the Secretary of State. In order to future-proof the provision, the Secretary of State would also be able to make regulations to alter who the notification will be made to. These amendments are essential to ensure that the duty to notify works effectively alongside anticipated changes to the national referral mechanism. I hope that the House will support them. I look forward to hearing from my noble friend Lady Hamwee, when she speaks to her amendments, and to responding at the end of the debate. Meanwhile, I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I have tabled Amendments 88A and 91A in this group. I take the point about pre-emption, but the reason for my amendments remains, and will remain if the clause is amended only as the Government propose. At the heart of this is my concern that it should not only be a specified public authority with a duty to notify the Secretary of State, or whoever else it might be, if the authority believes that someone is a victim of slavery or human trafficking. The clause provides that there must be notification if the public authority has reason to believe that a person is such a victim. However, should not all public authorities have that duty, rather than just specified public authorities? If the authority has no reason to believe that a person is a victim, the duty to notify is not triggered—but even if an apparently unlikely public authority comes across a victim, should it not give notification?
When I was trying to think of an example, the Highways Agency seemed to be one of those authorities. In engaging a contractor to undertake work on a motorway, the Highways Agency might well be concerned that with some of those operating machinery or doing the heavy work, the contractor has engaged forced labour. We know that the construction industry is a sector which is at risk, if I can put it that way. Surely, then, it should have a duty, just as a local authority visiting premises—for example, for environmental health—would have the same obligation. I am quite concerned that without any good reason—because, as I say, the duty would not be triggered unless there was a reason to believe—the Government are unnecessarily narrowing the provision in the clause.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I am grateful to my noble friend for speaking to her amendments, which gives me the opportunity to explain the Government’s approach on who the duty to notify will apply to. We thought carefully about how to define the duty to notify, and to which authorities it should apply. Modern slavery is a complex and hidden crime and we need to ensure that those who are charged with the duty to notify in the Bill have the appropriate expertise to discharge their responsibilities. If we extend the duty too widely, we risk placing a duty on public authorities that lack the necessary skills to identify victims of this complex crime.
We recognise that identification of victims is an area that needs further development. We have ensured that encouraging good practice in the identification of victims is part of the commissioner’s remit and have included statutory guidance on victim identification in the Bill. We will also work with public bodies to improve training and awareness of the issue. The flexibility of specifying public authorities to whom the duty applies means that when we consider that further public authorities have the expertise effectively to identify victims of modern slavery, they can be added to the duty.
The Government do not want to place a legal and administrative burden on public authorities unnecessarily. For example, requiring authorities which simply will not come into contact with victims to provide training to staff and set up data recording systems would not be an efficient use of public funds.
My noble friend mentioned the Highways Agency. If an authority such as the Highways Agency had concerns over modern slavery, it should call the police or voluntarily notify according to the process set out in the duty of notify, so it will have access to people who have more expertise in that area.
Given this clarification, I hope that my noble friend is satisfied that the Bill strikes the right balance between ensuring that the right bodies are subject to this duty and enabling flexibility for changes in the future. I hope she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I certainly will not press the amendment today, but I wonder which is the chicken and which is the egg here. Of course, there is a concern about skills in identifying possible victims, but because this is an issue, it seems to me that it is all the more important that a duty to do something—maybe not to notify the Secretary of State, but to do something—ought to apply.
This is an unprocessed thought from when my noble friend was speaking. She said, rightly, that anyone who is concerned can go to the police. As we are talking about public authorities—and the Government have a relationship with public authorities—should we be thinking about guidance to all public authorities? As a minimum, it would say, “You may not have the skills, but all public authorities should be aware of this and if you have a concern, go to the police—if you think that there is nothing else you can do, always go to the police”. I think there is some scope—maybe not on the face of the Bill—for a bit more thought to go into the way we are operating our response to these issues.
I think that the Box has had time to process the thought that I did not. What I am saying is that I would be uneasy about leaving it there, because we have all identified that there is a problem that needs getting to grips with.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, may I help the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee? Perhaps the words she is looking for are “reasonable suspicion” rather than 100% identification?
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I was taking words from the Bill; “reason to believe” is what triggers the duty.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
Indeed, my Lords. In my reply I mentioned that we are working with public bodies to improve training in awareness of the issue. There will be guidance for public authorities on identifying victims. So my noble friend is quite right to raise this as an issue, but the Government are already working towards that end.
Lord Bates
(a) the Secretary of State, or(b) if regulations made by the Secretary of State require it to notify a public authority other than the Secretary of State, that public authority.”
Lord Bates
“( ) The Secretary of State may by regulations specify the public authorities to which this section applies.”
Baroness Cox
“Protection from slavery for overseas domestic workers
All overseas domestic workers in the United Kingdom, including those working for staff of diplomatic missions, shall be entitled to—(a) change their employer (but not work sector) while in the United Kingdom;(b) renew their domestic worker or diplomatic domestic worker visa, each such renewal being for a period not exceeding twelve months, as long as they remain in employment and are able to support themselves without recourse to public funds;(c) a three month temporary visa permitting them to live in the United Kingdom for the purposes of seeking alternative emplyoment as an overseas domestic worker where there is evidence that the worker has been a victim of modern slavery.”
Baroness Cox (CB)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 94, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, and my noble friends Lord Alton of Liverpool and Lord Hylton for their support.
This amendment would provide vital protections for overseas domestic workers. The current lack of protection for these workers, far too many of whom are subjected to appalling conditions of domestic servitude, remains a serious omission from the Bill. Overseas domestic workers are predominantly women. They are currently bonded by Immigration Rules to their employer. In most cases, the employer’s name is written on the worker’s visa. The worker is totally dependent on their employer for their employment, accommodation and immigration status.
Both the Joint Committee on the Draft Modern Slavery Bill and the Joint Committee on Human Rights have expressed significant concern with this current bonded arrangement. The Joint Committee on the draft Bill claims that it,
“unintentionally strengthened the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery”,
and concluded that,
“Tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse; it is slavery and is therefore incongruous with our aim to act decisively to protect the victims of modern slavery”.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights says that it regards,
“the removal of the right of an Overseas Domestic Worker to change employer as a backward step in the protection of migrant domestic workers, particularly as the pre-2012 regime had been cited internationally as good practice. We recommend that the Bill be amended to reverse the relevant changes to the Immigration Rules and to reinstate the pre-2012 protections in the Bill”.
However, the Government have remained strangely steadfast in refusing to make these recommended changes to the Immigration Rules to reinstate the pre-2012 protections for overseas domestic workers. We have therefore tabled this amendment, which would improve at least the minimum bargaining power of any employee—the freedom to resign their job. Without this opportunity, how can they challenge or question anything that their employers choose to do to them? I fail to understand why the current bonded arrangement for overseas domestic workers has remained in place for over two and a half years in spite of the widespread recognition of its disastrous impact.
It is true, as stated by the Minister in Committee in the other place, that abuse of these domestic workers took place prior to April 2012, a time when they had some protection in being able to change employer. However, this surely highlights the problem that workers employed in private households are particularly vulnerable to abuse and therefore need more protections, not fewer. The Home Secretary herself, in her foreword to the Modern Slavery Strategy, describes how:
“Domestic workers are imprisoned and made to work all hours of the day and night for little or no pay”.
This is indeed an apt description of the conditions found by Human Rights Watch in its report Hidden Away, published in March this year, documenting the conditions of domestic workers in the United Kingdom who had entered on the tied overseas domestic worker visa.
The excellent organisation Kalayaan, in its briefing Still Enslaved: The Migrant Domestic Workers who are Trapped by the Immigration Rules, gave statistics of the abuse reported to the organisation by 120 workers who were tied to their employers during the first two years since the introduction of the tied visa. Their accounts of their experiences are shockingly deplorable. The bonding of workers to their employers not only limits options for escape and justice but worsens their treatment during employment. For example, Kalayaan’s figures show that 71% of those tied to their employer reported not being allowed out of the house unaccompanied compared with 43% of those not tied, and 65% of tied workers do not even have their own room, often sleeping on the kitchen floor or in the lounge, with no privacy or time to themselves, compared with 34% of those not tied.
The Centre for Social Justice, in its significant report on trafficking in the UK, It Happens Here, recommended that overseas domestic workers again be permitted to change employer. Andrew Boff, Conservative leader of the GLA, came to the same conclusion in his report, Shadow City. As long ago as 2009, the Home Affairs Select Committee, in its report on trafficking, warned against the proposed bonded arrangement, stating that retaining the visa allowing change of employer and renewal if in employment was,
“the single most important issue in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers”.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, with her customary clarity, passion and eloquence, my noble friend Lady Cox has set out the arguments for Amendment 94, to which I am a signatory and which other noble Lords support, too. I was very struck in the representations we received about this amendment by what was said by the Trades Union Congress. It supported the recommendations of the Joint Committee and particularly highlighted paragraphs 224, 225 and 227, to which I shall come in a moment.
Before referring to those paragraphs in detail I will simply make the point that a reinstatement of the position that my noble friend has described, the pre-2012 position, is what we should look towards; the one that was originally enacted in 1988, with very good reason. Her amendment also concentrates our mind towards those who are in domestic service attached to diplomats. We have heard from my noble friend Lord Sandwich and others during the course of these proceedings and during other debates about the particular circumstances that such workers often find themselves in.
Returning to the Joint Committee, it is worth the Government looking again at what the Joint Committee had to say. In paragraph 224, it said:
“The difficulties faced by this group of workers appear to have been compounded by changes made to Immigration Rules in 2012 which had the net effect of removing their right to change employer, and thus denying them one means of removal from an abusive situation”.
In paragraph 225, it said:
“Evidence we received challenges the assumption that such mechanisms provide adequate protection … Tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse; it is slavery and is therefore incongruous with our aim to act decisively to protect the victims of modern slavery”.
Paragraph 227 states:
“We recommend the Home Office reverse the changes to the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa. This would at the very least allow organisations and agencies to remove a worker from an abusive employment situation immediately. It would also enable the abuse to be reported to the police without fear that the victim would be deported as a result. This in turn would facilitate the prosecution of modern slavery offences”.
I do not think one can do better than to rehearse those arguments from the Joint Committee because it clearly looked at this issue in some detail and everything that is in my noble friend’s amendment would give statutory provision to what it said.
I was also struck by my noble friend’s comment about what happened in another place. David Hanson MP moved an amendment similar to the amendment moved by my noble friend. As she said, it was narrowly defeated in Committee on a Division only after the chair added his vote to the no votes—so opinion in another place is clearly divided. That is another good reason why we should revisit this issue.
Sadly, the Government have so far declined to accept the Joint Committee’s recommendations and have claimed that existing and planned measures will be sufficient to protect migrant domestic workers. They have put significant emphasis on the fact that theoretically all overseas domestic workers have the protection of UK employment law while working in the UK. While in theory that may be so, and in theory they can take a case against an employer to an employment tribunal, in reality and in practice that right is denied to domestic workers on a tied visa. In addition to barriers, such as cuts to legal aid, which we have already referred to, if they want to avoid breaching the Immigration Rules, tied domestic workers must take a case against their employer while remaining in that employer’s home. It is totally unrealistic for these workers to take any kind of legal action against an employer who has potentially trafficked them, exploited them and denied them their most basic rights while still living with their home.
The noble Baroness referred to the charity Kalayaan. It told me that of the 120 domestic workers that it had registered on the tied visa system in the two years since the April 2012 changes, fewer than five had taken an employment case and none had gone to a tribunal. Domestic workers often report to organisations such as Kalayaan that their employers confiscate their mobile phones or refuse them permission to make calls during working hours, which can be excessively long, thereby ensuring that they cannot access services such as ACAS.
I asked for an example to illustrate the situation, and I will briefly mention it. It is a case study of a young woman called Nerita. She was brought to the UK by her employer to work in their private household. She explained that she came from a poor family in south India and her husband, children and elderly parents are dependent on her remittances for their support. This is a very important point. If someone is dependent on the money that you are sending them, that plays into all the emotional arguments and the blackmail that can be used against people in that situation.
An agency found Nerita work with a family who lived in the Middle East. She described having to borrow the agency fee from various relatives. It took over a year to save the money on her meagre salary to repay the loan. She accompanied her employer to this country in 2014. Her conditions of employment changed little when she came to the UK. She worked seven days a week from 7 am until midnight. She was not permitted to leave the employer’s home unaccompanied. Her passport was taken from her when she started working for them and was never returned to her. She slept on a small mattress in the children’s room. Her salary was the equivalent of £150 a month while she was in the Middle East, but she was not paid at all during her time in the UK.
She described being regularly verbally abused by her employer. She was told that she should not speak because she was a servant. The employer also threatened to send Nerita back to India. Nerita speaks very little English and was not aware of the terms and conditions of her visa. Her family’s situation in India is desperate and she was distressed to learn that as she had come to the UK on a tied visa she could work only with the employer who brought to the UK—and then only for a maximum of six months. When she asked for Kalayaan’s support in getting her passport back, it had to explain that involving the police—the point referred to a few moments ago by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—would almost certainly result in her being detained and her passport being confiscated until she left the UK. Kalayaan has spoken to Nerita about referral to the national referral mechanism, which we discussed earlier on, as a victim of trafficking. However, that would provide only short-term support for this very vulnerable woman. As she came to the UK on the tied overseas domestic worker visa, she will not get the justice she deserves. That is why we should support Amendment 94 in the name of my noble friend.
Baroness Hanham (Con)
My Lords, I greatly regret that I have not previously been able to take part in this Committee, having had conflicting commitments, but I very much hope to be able to rectify that on Report. I wanted to be here today for this amendment. What we have heard illustrates quite clearly what a desperate situation this is. In the debate on the previous amendment the Minister referred to “hidden victims”. If ever victims were hidden, it is in this domestic and overseas area. As other noble Lords have said, people do not know that they are there. They do not get out; they have no way of drawing people’s attention to the fact that they are abused. There is clearly so much wrong here that we cannot just ignore it.
As a member of the Joint Committee I should say that the committee was in absolute agreement on practically every part of our report, but this part affected us very deeply indeed. We very much hope that if the Government cannot accept this amendment they will give way to some extent so that we can go back to the situation as it was. As it is now, organisations such as Kalayaan that are involved in helping these victims are working with one hand tied behind their backs. They cannot do anything although they very much want to. I have not put my name to the amendment but I very much support the theory behind it regarding the problems that exist.
I will read a very short part from one of the briefings that we have received. It is from the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, and although part of it has been referred to, it is worth repeating. It says:
“The government does not deny that overseas domestic workers need protection”.
Indeed, they do not. It continues:
“But it suggests that this can come from the police—
as has already been mentioned—
“ACAS, the pay and work rights helpline and employment tribunals”.
We are talking about people from poor families in India who, as we know, do not always speak English, so how on earth will they access ACAS? It is way out of the bounds of reality. As for employment tribunals, you can hardly get an employment tribunal if you work in this country, never mind if you come in on a tied visa. The briefing goes on to say:
“It places heavy demands upon a person in a situation of exploitation, enslavement and extreme poverty to reach any of these sources of help, let alone where they do not speak English and are isolated and alone; let alone when they are undocumented, fear removal and are reluctant to jeopardise”,
their income.
I shall refer just to the undocumented aspect. Clearly these people cannot get in without documentation and the appropriate visa. However, we have had plenty of evidence showing that the last time that some of these people see their documentation is when they come into the country. Their passports are whisked away from them as they leave the airport and they never know when they will see them again.
On Second Reading I asked if I could see the card, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, referred, that is given to people who come in as domestic workers. Bear in mind that they may not speak much English and do not always come from articulate families, and that they may not be able to read or write. The card is headed:
“Know your rights when working in the UK”—
a starter for 10. It says:
“Your employer should give you a written contract of your terms and conditions”—
fine. It continues:
“If your employer provides you with accommodation, they are allowed to deduct up to £5.08 per day from your wages. No other deductions can be made by them unless you agree to it in writing first, and even then you should still be paid at least the UK minimum wage”.
It also says:
“You have the right to be safe at work”,
which of course they have. In the next section, “Help and advice”, it says:
“For advice on pay and work rights”,
they should ring a number. Then it states:
“If you are being forced to work or your employer isn’t willing to respect your rights”,
ring another number; and:
“If you are in immediate danger call the emergency services”.
Half these people have had not only their passports but their phones taken away. They have no access to phones. They have no ability to ring any of those numbers.
I do not know the answer to this aspect of the problem. I recognise that this is the Border Force’s way of trying to get some information to people as they come in. I have not made any inquiries about how it is handed out, but if it is just plonked in somebody’s passport—a passport that is then taken away—as they come in, that is of no use whatever. If they do manage to hang on to it, if they need it at some stage, one hopes that somebody will be able to tell them what it means—but that person is not going to be the employer, because that is the person they would be trying to complain against.
I am afraid that I have gone on rather too long about how badly I feel about all this. My question to the Minister is: when these people come in—they come in on specific visas, so they are perfectly identifiable—does the Border Force interview any of them before handing them this leaflet, to try to find out whether they understand what is going on? Otherwise we are doing nothing with the leaflet, other than playing a game by saying, “This is how we are welcoming you, and this is what you should do”, when they do not understand.
I am sure that the Minister will listen carefully to this. The changes made in 2012 have clearly had a very adverse impact. I understand why some of them were made—in immigration legislation, for example—but on the other hand, we are not talking about huge numbers; these are just miserable people.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I fully support the amendment—as the Minister knows, because I told him some time ago. I take the view that the recent change in the visa for domestic servants is shocking, because it puts a relatively small number of people into an utterly impossible situation. They can choose either to continue to be a slave, or to be deported. That is just not acceptable.
However, if the Government are not disposed to do anything effective about the visa, they might be interested in some discussions that I have had with the creative and inventive researcher of Frank Field MP. He has come up with an analogy that the Minister might just find interesting. Women who come over here with a marriage visa and become the victims of domestic violence are entitled to what is called a DDV—destitution and domestic violence—concession. This concession allows them three months’ access to public funds while their cases are being sorted out by the Home Office, with a view to deciding whether they will be given the right to remain here, or whether, after those three months, they will have to go back.
I ask the Minister, at the very least, to say whether there is not a very close analogy between such a domestic servant and a woman coming over here with a marriage visa who then has to leave home because of domestic violence. Goodness me, some of the violence that women in domestic servitude suffer is probably worse than the domestic violence suffered by a woman who has come over with a marriage visa. I suggest that three months is too short a period for a victim of slavery, so I ask the Minister to consider the marriage visa and see whether the same conditions could apply, by analogy, to the visa for domestic servants. I ask for six months instead of three months for these women to sort themselves out, and for their cases to be sorted out by the Home Office. If at the end of six months they had to go back, that would be a rather different situation, because they would have had some time at least, with public benefit, to try to see what their future lives might be. The marriage visa analogy may not be as good as some other means, but I urge the Minister at least to look at it as a possible alternative.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, a powerful case has been made for the amendment, and I simply want to add my support. This is such an important issue, which goes to the heart of what the Bill is about. The Minister, in his letter to Peers after Second Reading, said that he shared noble Lords’ determination to stamp out all forms of modern slavery, including abuse of domestic workers. That is a welcome aspiration, which has been repeated in various forms in various places.
The centrality of this issue to the Bill is underlined by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. On the basis of studies that it has funded, it writes that,
“there is most risk of forced labour where an individual’s work visa is tied to a particular employer. The most commonly cited example is the situation of overseas domestic workers who, since 2012, are again no longer allowed to change employers within the same category and hence become trapped in abusive situations”.
Evidence of the effects of being so trapped is, as we have heard, provided by organisations such as Kalayaan, which works with overseas domestic workers. I pay tribute to its work. Kalayaan argues that all the available evidence suggests that the change in the visa,
“has facilitated their exploitation and abuse, including trafficking”.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has said, Kalayaan details numerous ways in which the abuse experienced by overseas domestic workers who register with them has worsened since the change in the rules.
In their response to the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, the Government suggested that the previous rules “potentially encouraged abuse” because they enabled employers to bring domestic workers to this country for longer periods. Do the Government have evidence of such abuse? Or is this a hypothetical potential, which needs to be set against the actual evidence of abuse that has happened since 2012? In that time, as we have heard, abuse and exploitation has got much worse. It should also be set against the fact that the pre-2012 regime was cited by both the ILO and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants as best practice. As the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has observed, this was one reason why the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, regarded,
“the removal of the right of an Overseas Domestic Worker to change employer as a backward step in the protection of migrant domestic workers.
We recommended that the Bill should be amended to reinstate the pre-2012 position.
Given the clear evidence of how the removal of that protection has facilitated abuse, given the Government’s own commitment to stamp out abuse of overseas domestic workers, and given that I feel both Ministers are reasonable people, I hope that they will feel able to take this amendment away, think again, and bring forward their own amendment before Report.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)
My Lords, I conducted an inquiry into trafficking for the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Scotland, and it was extended beyond sexual trafficking to migrant workers and domestic servitude. I went to Scotland imagining that it was unlikely that I would come across cases of domestic servitude, because the experience I had had in this field had usually been in the diplomatic area, when ambassadorial families had brought to this country people who had then fled the domestic setting, claiming serious abuse. But one of the things that came to light was a particular case involving a very wealthy family who had businesses in Scotland but had originally come from the Indian subcontinent. They would regularly bring young girls from back home, where their relatives still lived, to Scotland to work for them and care for their children. We can well understand any family wanting to have someone to care for their children who, for example, speaks the language of the place they come from, can continue certain traditions, and can cook in a style that the family might find more appealing.
The shocking thing was that the young woman had fled from the home of this family and given an account similar to the ones that we have heard—sleeping on the kitchen floor on a mat, not being allowed out of the house, not having access to her passport, and so on. But it was even worse than some of the circumstances that we have heard, in that her family back home were the people who received payment, directly from accounts presumably kept alive back in Bangladesh. The problem was that she did not have access to money; she only discovered that she might have rights because, on one occasion when the family allowed her to accompany the children to the park, she met someone else from back home, who had a discussion with her about her circumstances and her rights. It was through the intercession of the other person that, in fact, police went to her house and the girl’s circumstances were discovered.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, add support for the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox. This is a very important issue, affecting a group of extremely vulnerable workers, so it is right and fundamental that it forms part of the Bill. The change to the overseas domestic workers visa back in 2012, tying domestic workers to their employer, was too heavy-handed a response when you look at the number of domestic workers involved and the vulnerability of those workers. In 2010, visas issued to domestic workers accounted for just 6% of all employment-related visas issued. At the time of the change, the Government argued that this visa was a route to settlement that was abused. However, very few overseas domestic workers were granted the right to settle; between 2006 and 2010, an average of just 700 domestic workers a year were given the right to settlement. That figure taken as a percentage of the 2013 settlement figures represents less than 0.5%.
I understand, as the Government will argue, that because of their isolated working conditions this group of workers was vulnerable to, and suffered, abuse before the change in visa rules. But the research by Kalayaan, as others have said, has shown that abuse and exploitation has increased as a result of the new visa rules, figures that the Minister in the other place made clear are not disputed by the Government. This visa change has created the perfect storm, with work carried out in isolated conditions, employers having excessive power afforded to them and a legal system that offers absolutely no protection. It is therefore unsurprising that the abuse has increased.
The Minister will no doubt talk about having stronger pre-entry checks, a stronger written contract with explicit terms and conditions and more information given to overseas workers on their rights but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said, the effectiveness of those provisions has yet to be proven in practice. Also, these actions are not mutually exclusive to any other action; it is not a choice between stronger support mechanisms or a change in the visa rules—we should be doing both.
The amendment has a lot of support inside and outside this Chamber. Three parliamentary reviews have supported a change to the visa situation for overseas domestic workers. I hope that the Government can support it too, and include this amendment, or a version of it, in the Modern Slavery Bill.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, it happens here—it happens even in Scotland, as we have heard, that most civilised country.
A number of noble Lords have used words such as “unimaginable” but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, I can only too well imagine the card—and I share her concerns about the card itself—being slipped into the passport as it is handed over. Of course, the passport is then very often taken by the employer.
I do not want to repeat the very powerful speeches made by so many noble Lords. I was grateful to hear from a number of people, including, most strongly and emphatically, from the three workers themselves to whom the noble Baroness referred, and at the meeting that she organised with Virginia Mantouvalou, who has written a report. Clearly, it is far too long to read here, but one thing particularly struck me. She gives the history of the overseas domestic worker visa and the diplomatic visa. When the concession was originally introduced, it was from concern to enable workers who had been with a family overseas to come here. The comment was made that it was for “a humanitarian reason”—to look after the domestic workers—and look where we have got to.
At that meeting, Kate Roberts from Kalayaan explained how her organisation could no longer help workers who managed to find their way to it, which must be a tiny percentage, because the organisation has to explain the problem with the Immigration Rules. Indeed, it often cannot help because of threats from employers to workers about criminalisation.
A number of noble Lords have also said that we must remember the realities. Measures such as dealing more effectively at the port of entry are important, but they are not enough. One thing that occurs to me on that is that, at the border on exit, when there is suspicion that a girl is being taken abroad for a forced marriage—the border officials are trained to recognise this—there are arrangements whereby they can be taken aside to be interviewed. The noble Baroness is right to point to that. I do not see why it should not happen in the other direction. We need to think about the realities. What people seem to be able to do to get around formal systems is almost beyond our imagining, and it is the realities that we need to fix on.
Lord Hylton
My Lords, I happen to have been involved with this situation, which allows serious abuses of incoming domestic workers to happen, since the early 1990s. I have never known such universal support for the need for a reform as we have heard today. I leave it at that.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, the name of my noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon is attached to this amendment. I certainly do not wish to speak at any length, because the arguments have already been made, but I shall reiterate one or two things. Under the tied visa system, introduced in the changes in 2012 to the Immigration Rules, overseas domestic workers who are being exploited no longer have the option of seeking other employment to get away from an employer who is exploiting them since they are tied to their employer for a non-renewable period of six months. Under the tied visa system, people who are being exploited are normally not willing to go to the relevant authorities because they fear that, if they leave their employer, the outcome will be that they will be deported as an immigration offender. If they are being paid anything at all—evidence suggests that more than 60% may not be—they will lose what may be a source of income being sent to support dependants in their own country.
One would have thought that the Government would have wanted to abolish the current tied visa system for overseas domestic workers, since tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse, as has been said already, and precludes acting decisively to protect victims of modern slavery. Of course, as also has already been said, it is unrealistic for such domestic workers to take any kind of legal action against an employer who potentially has trafficked them, exploited them and denied them their most basic rights while still living in the home of their employer.
The impact assessment that accompanied the 2012 changes stated that the ability of these workers—that is, overseas domestic workers—to change employer and access the UK labour market was,
“contrary to general Government policy on low skilled migration”.
However, the impact assessment also acknowledged the,
“vulnerability to abuse and exploitation”,
of these workers. I do not know whether the Government’s resistance to date to going down the road of this amendment is related, in the light of that comment in the 2012 impact assessment, to a view that it would lead to an increase in immigration. Perhaps the noble Baroness could say what, if any, increase in immigration the Government believe there would be if the amendment that we are debating is adopted. Reversing the 2012 changes for the overseas domestic worker visa would, at the very least, allow organisations and agencies to remove a worker from an abusive employment situation immediately. It also would enable the abuse to be reported to the police without fear that the victim would be deported as a result and that, in turn, would facilitate the prosecution of modern slavery offences, which, surely, is the purpose of the Bill we are now discussing. I hope that, in responding, the Minister will take account of what has been said far more eloquently than I can manage by so many of your Lordships in this Committee today.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, for introducing this amendment and speaking with such eloquence and acknowledge her expertise and campaigning work in this area. Holding anyone in modern slavery is totally unacceptable; I am sure that, around the Committee, we can all agree on that. Overseas domestic workers, like anyone else, deserve protection from modern slavery and support and help if abuse takes place. Noble Lords around the Committee have raised passionate concerns about some of the appalling situations that people find themselves in.
I shall set out why the main issue is not the nature of the visa that somebody has. Through both the Bill and wider policy changes, we will seek to provide protection to anyone who needs it, regardless of their employment type or any visa they may have. Obviously, we are focusing here on overseas domestic workers and seeking to strengthen their protections further.
The best way to prevent an abusive working relationship from being brought to the UK is to test its genuineness before a visa is issued. A number of noble Lords have raised these issues. Private household employers must prove to immigration officials that they have a pre-existing employment relationship of at least 12 months with their domestic worker, for example by providing pay slips or work records. All individuals applying to come to the UK on an overseas domestic worker visa must also provide evidence with their application that they have agreed in writing the core terms and conditions of their employment in the UK. That helps to establish that the worker is employed under terms that they find acceptable and allows us to ensure that these are appropriate. The evidence is to be provided in the form of a prescribed template—although, of course, I hear from around the Committee the concerns that these documents will not be adequately and legally kept to. The requirement for a written statement of key terms and conditions has been in place only since April 2012 and we believe that it could be improved to reflect international best practice. Officials have been working on a revised template to try to ensure that both employers and employees have an opportunity to see what standards are expected on both sides before workers come here and that they are aware of rights and responsibilities, including, sections on passport retention, sleeping accommodation and all the other things that noble Lords have mentioned, which so often are open to abuse.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Does she not accept that the figures that she has just given to the Committee are very dubious? How can evidence of this kind by collated? By definition, many of these will be people who are frightened out of their minds about going to any of the authorities. The Kalayaan figures demonstrate that: the discrepancy between the number of people who approached it and then those whom it was able to take on was a very tiny percentage. Is this not just the tip of an iceberg? By ignoring it we are not going to help the situation at all.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I entirely accept what the noble Lord says; it may well be the tip of an iceberg. However, I am setting out that the Government are trying to tackle this problem, in a way that previous Governments have, by the dual action of contacting the employers and the workers to ensure that both are aware, before they come to work in this country, of their rights and responsibilities.
I entirely accept the difficulty of identifying the people who are abused, but I assure noble Lords that anyone who is abused, once that comes to light, will be treated with the sort of help and support that one would expect from a country with our rich tradition of giving refuge to people who have problems. While working over here, they of course have the protection of UK employment law. Anyone who believes that they are being mistreated can take action to report it. As I say, the measures we are taking extend the ones that previous Government have taken. The numbers that are coming forward appear to be stabilising because we are taking measures to try to ensure that the employers and the workers have a full view of their rights when they come here.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)
I thank the Minister for giving way. Of course, everything that can be done ought to be done to show the employer and the person they are employing what their rights and responsibilities are. I am sure that she would be the first to admit that that is a relationship of power to powerlessness. When it comes from that kind of relationship, particularly if there is a prospect of a family being left behind—say, in India—who will get a regular monthly pittance, what would a signature on a piece of paper really be worth?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I think we are all agreed that that is a difficult problem and we are trying to find ways to tackle it. The power of the employer and the fact that people support family links back home make it extraordinarily difficult for people to complain about their employment.
I turn to the tabled new clause and its proposal that, if they sought new work, overseas domestic workers would be allowed to extend their visas and be granted a three-month temporary visa where there is evidence that they had been a victim of trafficking or slavery. This particular visa is designed for the sole purpose of enabling workers who are part of a household overseas to accompany their employers to the UK while the employer is working here. Allowing them to change employer is not compatible with the purpose of this particular visa. It would create an anomaly in the system if non-skilled, non-European Economic Area domestic workers could come to the UK with an employer and then change employer and stay here in a way that is denied to other non-skilled, non-EEA workers.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked me about the sort of numbers that we might expect. Between 2009 and 2013, on average 5,600 overseas domestic workers in private households extended their visas annually. We know that wages and working conditions in the UK are often more attractive than in the countries from which they may have come, so we would expect a similarly large number of workers to seek to remain here. The amendment would potentially allow overseas domestic workers to extend their visas indefinitely in 12-month increments, permitting all those who stayed in the UK for 10 years to become eligible to apply for settlement. It is arguable that this temporary, non-economic route should not have preference over those who choose to follow the official routes into employment in this country.
The ability to change employer does not necessarily protect against exploitation. Indeed, the long-term nature of employment and an ability to extend visas can, in some cases, facilitate abuse. It therefore would not necessarily provide protection against trafficking and other exploitation.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
Could the Minister explain how it would make abuse more, rather than less, likely if they have the power to make that choice? I did not quite follow the argument.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
If they had power to extend their visas indefinitely then the employer could keep them in the country indefinitely.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett
I thought the argument was that they had the power to change their employer. How does that make them more likely to be abused, if the reason they want to change their employer is because the employer who brought them into the country is abusing them in the kind of way that we heard from my noble friend Lady Kennedy?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It would enable them to extend their visas. It is the extension of the visa that would mean that they could be here longer and therefore possibly open to abuse for longer.
One other thing worth saying is that, of those who sought to extend visas before, there was a whole range of reasons as to why they wanted to do so. The fact that they were victims of trafficking or abuse was not necessarily the only or the main reason why people chose to change employers and to extend their visas. Of course, we recognise that there are huge risks to people who come here. In the Bill we seek to provide methods of having a more secure life for the people who come into our country and who are here because of the employment they have with a particular employer.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, forgive me, but I am boiling over sitting on the end of the Bench here. I am sorry that I did not speak to this amendment; it was for my noble friend to do so and he did so very well. Throughout the debate on the Bill, all noble Lords around the Chamber have been at one with the Government in trying to make it a better Bill and in trying to ensure that the lives of people who are suffering in servitude, slavery and bonded labour are made better. We know that that is what the Government want to do. We are talking about a very few people who are in a desperate situation. It is not due to the noble Baroness the Leader, and I do not often blame civil servants, but I cannot believe the guff that the Minister has had to read out. We are talking about people who are unable to make telephone calls or act on all the information that is given to them. These people are in desperation. We need to help them. Frankly, what the noble Baroness is saying is just not good enough.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
If I may say so, I am not aware that the noble Baroness’s Government produced answers to this either. It is not a straightforward issue. We have been trying to take measures that will further create supportive situations for people who find themselves trafficked. As I have said, if they do find themselves trafficked they will be taken up, be given support and be given legal aid. I absolutely accept the difficulty of people in these situations to get access outside of their house and to escape an abusive employer. However, the measures we are putting in place are part of an effort to try to identify where things have gone wrong and where there are people living in abusive situations in our country.
I will touch on those in diplomatic houses. Very often the servants of diplomats come under a different area of protection from other workers. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office treats very seriously any mistreatment of domestic workers in diplomatic households. Of course, that requires immense sensitivity in dealing with people whose customs and norms are different. However, it now has set in place very strong systems so that diplomats can be withdrawn from this country if it is discovered that they do not conform to the standards of employment that we expect from them and from everybody in this country. I entirely share the anger of the Committee about people who come to this country and are exploited and victimised while here. We are seeking different ways; we are open to suggestions from all sides of the Committee as to what other measures we might—
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I am grateful to the Minister. If she is open to suggestions, I wonder what she is prepared to say about the analogy with the marriage visa. Would she at least take it away and look at it with a possibility of allowing up to six months of public benefit while they sort themselves and the Home Office sorts them?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise to the noble and learned Baroness. I think she is referring to the domestic violence concession, which is a three-month visa to allow people to come to the UK with an expectation that they will settle here and during those three months they must make an application to settle. That is specifically for those coming here to join family with the expectation of staying. Victims who are helping the police with an investigation already have access to discretionary leave of at least one year and one day, so they have an extended time over here to make their case, if they are already in contact with the police. I think from the suggestions that the noble and learned Baroness was making, they would probably already have had to make clear that they were victims of abuse. That would have become public and they would have found a way of making that known to the authorities.
We are obviously going to come back to this clause to try to set out ways of dealing with this issue. If noble Lords around the Committee who feel as anguished about this as obviously people do have clear suggestions as to how the Government could do more to help the situation so that we do not have anybody in the country who is a victim of abuse and slavery while in domestic employment, then we are more than ready to listen to them. We have already set and strengthened the systems of trying to make contact with the worker at the point of entry. After that, it may be very difficult to make contact with them, but when they are coming in at the point of entry they will have to present a passport and that is a moment when the authorities can make contact with them. We are also seeking to make sure that all employers who come to work in this country are fully aware of the compliance which they should make for the people whom they employ.
For the reasons that I have set out, we think that this clause would not necessarily strengthen the safeguards for the very people whom we are trying to protect. We all have the same aims in mind—to attempt to strengthen the protections for these people. I hope that, with the assurance that we will be addressing this again and discussing it further before Report, the noble Baroness will feel minded to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Cox
My Lords, I warmly thank all noble Lords who have spoken in support of the amendment and have suggested creative alternative variations on the theme, as my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss has done. I find it a little hard to fulfil the characteristic courtesy of thanking the Minister. I am sorry, but I think that I rather felt sympathy for the reply that she was obliged to give. It seems to me that at the moment the Government totally underestimate the seriousness of the situation. They put forward remedial suggestions such as templates or providing information on arrival in the country. The nonsensical nature of the effectiveness of those remedies came out very clearly in the debate itself.
It has been shown again and again that these very vulnerable workers may well not have ways of understanding information that is made available, or it may be removed along with their passports. Frankly, those are not reassuring alternatives. The Government’s position totally underestimates the incredible vulnerability of these workers. They are trapped in these situations. There is also the whole aspect of the intimidation and abuse that they suffer and the intimidation and threats to their families back home—that is a very real long arm of intimidation which prevents many of them seeking help in the first place.
Figures were quoted, but figures really are a distraction. Kalayaan’s research may say 120, but one is one too many. Every case that has been reported is a situation of challenge to us in this country to do something effective about these immensely vulnerable people. The distance—the chasm—between the kind of de jure position adopted by the Government and the de facto reality of these immensely vulnerable people is a chasm that really has not been breached by the Minister’s suggestions.
I emphasise that all of us who have spoken share the conviction that the plight of overseas domestic workers in this country today is a very real and well documented form of slavery. It would be intensely ironic—ironic in the extreme—if we failed to use the Modern Slavery Bill to eradicate this form of slavery on our own doorsteps. I am sorry to say that I do not feel that we have received a very satisfactory reassurance from the Minister. I am sure that we will have to return extremely robustly to this issue on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
“Gangmasters Licensing Authority
The Secretary of State may make regulations to amend the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004 to enlarge the functions, powers and duties of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority set out in section 1 of the 2004 Act.”
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, this is another modest amendment to allow the Government to look at the Gangmasters Licensing Authority at an appropriate time to see whether the functions, powers and duties of the licensing authority should be extended to cover other areas, which are extremely obvious, where it is well known that there is quite a lot of slavery and trafficking.
Two particular areas that I have in mind are the construction industry and the hospitality industry. One area of the hospitality industry is the laundry. Almost every hotel uses outsourcing of its laundry. There are serious concerns as to what goes on in some of the laundries. There is no doubt at all that there are serious concerns about what goes on in the construction business, particularly with people working on sites.
A very obvious example of that was the Connors case in Bedfordshire, where a Gypsy family, the Connors, picked up out-of-work, homeless people from soup kitchens and homeless centres and took them, on the promise of £80 a day, to work on construction sites. These people were kept in appalling accommodation in caravans, first working on construction sites in England, and then a whole lot of them were taken across to Sweden where they were working in the northern part of the country. It was not until a young Swedish boy, who had also been caught like this, walked 500 miles to Stockholm and went to the police, who rushed to the area where these people were locked up—not being paid a single penny, in appalling conditions—that they were identified as slaves and victims, and they did not even know it. However, one of them gave evidence to the informal inquiry led by Frank Field MP, of which Sir John Randall MP and I were members at the request of the Home Secretary. This particular victim gave very clear evidence of what goes on in the construction industry.
I understand entirely the scarcity of resources, so I am not asking the Government to extend the powers of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. Indeed, Paul Broadbent would be horrified unless he had proper resources to manage what would have to be a larger enterprise if these two areas were taken into account. What I do not want is there to be inability on the part of the Government, when they have the money to extend the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, to find the proper legislative process to be able to do that. To put the matter in current usage, rather than faffing around looking for the right sort of place, if you have the power to do it, you do not have to do it until you can, but the power would be there so that you could do it in subsidiary legislation later. I hope that the Government will listen seriously to what I suggest. I beg to move.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley
My Lords, I have Amendment 97A in this group, but I also support Amendment 97 in the name of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and Amendment 101A in the name of my noble friend Lord Rosser. Many people welcome the great job done by the GLA. In the sectors for which it is responsible, it has been extremely effective at raising standards and driving out poor performance. Ten years ago, given the context in which the GLA was established, limiting the sectors it covered made sense. But 10 years later the limit on the GLA remit now makes little sense.
Amendment 97A was recommended by the joint scrutiny committee, of which I was a member, to allow the remit of the GLA to be extended. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, many high-risk sectors fall outside the remit of the GLA, such as construction and hospitality—and I would add care and cleaning to that list. These sectors are high risk because they commonly use subcontractors, agencies and migrant labour. The work is seasonal and low paid, and workers often work on site and in isolated conditions. Therefore, these sectors need to be afforded greater attention and the workers need the extra protection given to them by the licensing regime of the GLA.
As I have said, the GLA is widely recognised as being effective and is often cited as an example of best practice. Many people have called for its remit to be extended to such high-risk sectors, which is why the Joint Committee looked at it in some detail and agreed. It would be a mistake not to consider it now or, as the noble and learned Baroness said, in the future, which is why I support Amendments 97 and 101A that allow for that. These amendments also would allow the GLA to be given greater powers. I agree. The GLA would have the power, for example, to enforce payment of unpaid wages and the ability to fine businesses which have deliberately evaded licensing.
The sentencing and penalties faced by unlicensed and exploitative gangmasters also need addressing. Some very ruthless people are getting away with comparatively small fines. In 2013, an unlicensed gangmaster was convicted of exploiting more than 60 Filipino workers on dairy farms in the UK. Despite having made more than £700,000 through exploiting his workers and housing them in appalling conditions, he was given a 12-month suspended sentence and was asked to pay £45,000 in compensation over three years. We must review the sentencing guidelines for GLA offences. We cannot have a situation where cruel gangmasters see fines, in the words of the GLA,
“as a hazard of the job”.
I hope that we can amend this Bill to address these significant issues, as when there is inadequate preventive action, abuse occurs.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 101A in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Rosser, and I support the other amendments in the group. Like others, we are seeking an enabling power by regulations to allow the Secretary of State to expand the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority into other sectors when he or she wishes to do so. In Committee in the other place, the Minister, Karen Bradley, said:
“The case has not been made for extending the GLA’s remit at this stage beyond the core areas the Act sought to address”.—[Official Report, Commons, 14/10/14; col. 480.]
I contest that point of view because, like other Members across the Committee, we have a deal of evidence to prove that there is a strong case for extending the GLA’s remit. But we are not forcing the Government to do that now; we are saying, as and when appropriate, please let us do it.
The introduction of legislation on gangmasters in 2004 has worked very well in protecting workers in the agriculture, horticulture and shellfish collection sectors. Widespread research from trade unions, charities and academics suggests that hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are routinely underpaid and overworked in dirty and dangerous jobs across the UK on farms, in care homes, providing cleaning services on the London Underground, in hotels and offices, and on construction sites, as others have said. Often employed by labour providers or gangmasters, many of these workers presumably have little idea of UK employment rights such as the national minimum wage, let alone the leverage to be able to claim them.
Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws
My Lords, I support these amendments. I see them as a corollary of our concerns about supply chains. Increasingly in my work, I am looking at issues concerning the corporate world and human rights. Many leading figures in the corporate world are anxious to address these issues because of the implications for their brand and damage to their reputation internationally if they are seen to be participating in activities which breach human rights.
Outsourcing is similarly an area where there are risks of high levels of abuse. There needs to be a real awareness that, as with supply chains, in outsourcing aspects of a business there is often a risk that those who are providing labour are going to be exploiting and abusive of those they are bringing in. As I mentioned, I chaired an inquiry in Scotland for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The whole of the central belt of Scotland is a provider of soft fruits and brings in migrant labour from abroad. It was the Gangmasters Licensing Authority that helped to eradicate some of the abusive practices that were happening there. The workers were living in the most terrible circumstances and there were issues around not just what they were being paid but how they were being treated. It falls to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to raise standards as well as to bring prosecutions. The inspectors within the GLA are often former police officers. I was very impressed with their commitment and with their evidence to the inquiry. As we have heard, this is moving beyond food and agriculture and into construction. It is also moving into care, as the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, mentioned. In this area, the ill treatment of workers is great, as it is in the outsourced elements of hospitality, such as cleaning and laundry.
I urge the Government to look at this. I accept, as do others, that there are financial constraints and that there would need to be resourcing. I support the idea of enabling legislation so that when the time is right we will not have to take up more parliamentary time and the expansion of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority’s remit can be speedily introduced.
Lord Whitty (Lab)
My Lords, I will intervene very briefly because I agree with almost everything that has been said. I was the Minister who brought in the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. At that time there was considerable scepticism as to whether we could use administrative means to clean up what was broadly recognised as an exploitative situation within horticulture and agriculture. I wished then that it had been slightly broader than that because, even more than 10 years ago, it was evident that some of these terrible practices extended to some other industries. Indeed, the same workers were being used. However, we decided to focus on horticulture and agriculture. The general message is that, although we have not entirely eliminated exploitation, bad living conditions and illegality from those sectors, they are a lot cleaner than they were. The effectiveness of the GLA is widely recognised.
The important point that has not really been emphasised is that the GLA has the ability to sanction the users of the labour. It is not just the gangmasters who are in the frame but the farmers and the horticulturalists as well, and that has driven a change of behaviour and attitude which has been backed up by those who use the produce—the retailers and the processors. There is a whole supply effect because the direct employer of labour that is being provided under these terrible conditions can be sanctioned.
This situation pre-eminently applies in parts of construction and it very evidently applies in catering and hospitality and in the care sector. If pressure is not put on the apparently respectable users of that labour then the sanctions, although not entirely ineffective, are less than complete. I recognise, as other noble Lords have done, the need for more information and more resources but we must use this legislation to enable the Government to extend this kind of approach to these other sectors at the appropriate point.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 97 tabled by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It is clear that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is widely respected and its role in preventing the increase in forced labour is very effective. The sectors that we are concerned about have all been mentioned and so I do not need to repeat points that have been powerfully made. It is not just a question of extending the sectors covered by the GLA. We should also not overlook its powers and duties. For instance, I understand that the GLA does not have the power to recover arrears of pay on behalf of workers. That sort of power or function might be one for further consideration.
The issue of resources arises. My noble friend Lady Suttie, who cannot be here at the moment, commented to me that there should be some sort of cost-benefit analysis of the extension of the sectors because of possible savings elsewhere. We know how hard this is in government. The DWP, the Department of Health and even the Home Office perhaps would not readily concede this, although they might be involved in some sort of analysis.
I am sorry to see that the CBI is reluctant to consider an extension. Its briefing refers to the GLA being,
“most effective in those sectors in which it currently operates”,
and to focusing on not extending work to “low-risk areas”. As noble Lords have said, construction, care, catering and hospitality are high-risk areas. The CBI is concerned about scrutiny of the compliant rather than action against the non-compliant. The obvious answer is that when there is compliance there need not be too much of a burden.
The British Retail Consortium takes a different view and has briefed a number of noble Lords about the GLA being an example of an effective body in helping to manage and mitigate the risks of slavery. It supports a review of the role and remit of the GLA, including extending its investigative powers, as long as it is sufficiently resourced, into other, as it puts it, high-risk areas. It is obvious that there is, if not unanimity, quite a lot of support. This surely must be something that the Government could at least leave on the agenda rather than exclude it.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I support noble Lords who have spoken in favour of these amendments, moved and spoken to so ably by my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall.
At Second Reading, and indeed in the debate on my Amendment 32 about the proceeds of crime and creating a victims’ fund that could be used to resource the authorities that are involved in trying to police trafficking, I referred to the tragedy that occurred in Morecambe Bay, which led to the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in helping to create this authority. Noble Lords will remember that 23 Chinese men and women drowned in Morecambe Bay, having been taken there by gangmasters in order to go cockle-picking. A local fisherman, Harold Benson, said at the time that what happened was,
“not only awful beyond words—it was absolutely avoidable”.
However, the lessons of Morecambe Bay have not been fully learnt. As we consider this legislation, which provides us with the only vehicle to tackle these kinds of issues—it is timely, it is good legislation and it is an opportunity—the question for the House is: is there more that needs to be done? At Second Reading, I referred to academic work that has been done at the University of Durham, which identified not only the need to extend the mandate of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority but the need for more resources. In 2011, 30 miles away from Morecambe Bay, in the River Ribble—not far from where I live—17 cockle-pickers of eastern European origin had to be rescued when they were in precisely the same situation as those in Morecambe Bay. We have not overcome the problem. We have set up an authority to deal with it but we have not adequately resourced that authority or put sufficient powers into its hands.
Indeed, when I looked at the figures, I was struck by the fact that only 37 people are employed by the authority and they have to cover the whole of Great Britain. Between 2011 and 2014 its budget was cut by some 17% and in 2013—I asked for the numbers of convictions—only seven people had been convicted. That does not fill me with great confidence that it is able to do the job that it was asked by Parliament to do. The authority is a wonderful creation. It has been given reasonable powers but they need to be extended. It certainly needs more resources.
This enabling provision, which my noble and learned friend referred to as being a modest amendment, would provide Ministers with the necessary belt and braces in the future to do more as and when the authority feels it wishes to. Not to put such a provision in the Bill will lead, as my noble and learned friend said, to the messiness of having to come back to Parliament. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, told us, it would require parliamentary time. That seems to be the wrong way to go about this. We have the opportunity here to put something into the legislation that would give the Government the ability to act, and it is an opportunity we should seize.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble and learned Baroness for tabling this amendment, and to other noble Lords who have spoken with such concern about the issues around the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, particularly its remit.
This Government are committed to ensuring fairness in the workplace, tackling worker exploitation and encouraging and raising levels of compliance with workplace rights across all sectors. We are already doing this through the use of existing enforcement arrangements. We very much welcome the many comments that have been made in support of the GLA and its vital work. It has been operating for less than 10 years but it is a successful organisation doing excellent work in tackling harmful activity affecting workers who are particularly vulnerable to exploitation in the sectors that it currently covers.
We need to consider this carefully and ensure that in seeking to broaden the GLA’s remit, we do not risk undermining the good work that is being done already. As the noble and learned Baroness pointed out, it is a comparatively small body, with only 66 staff. It performs a targeted role in an effective way and has a positive influence in the broader fight against exploitation. We very much want that to continue.
Following the Red Tape Challenge exercise and the triennial review, the GLA is implementing changes that will lift unnecessary burdens on compliant businesses while enabling a stronger focus on enforcement action. It is important that both these aspects are developed and move forward together.
Amendment 97 provides for a very broad power, enabling expansion of the GLA’s scope, remit and powers. Changes in the scope or remit of the GLA may very well be sensible; that is something that we will wish to consider further and which the Government have said that they wish to keep under review. However, we are not convinced that Amendment 97 meets that need or is the appropriate way to deal with the issue at the moment.
The amendment is open-ended. The enabling power could be used to set up the GLA to tackle all forms of slavery, trafficking and exploitation far beyond employment. That is a very big step away from the GLA’s current remit, where it has been so effective. It would require a dramatically different organisational and funding model to achieve a much broader role, which would likely require further primary legislation, as has been alluded to. Amendments 97A and 101A focus specifically on the remit, enabling the current licensing regime to be extended to additional industrial sectors beyond agriculture and food. Noble Lords have mentioned a number of sectors where this would be particularly relevant.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, who introduced the Bill in 2004 that established the GLA as a body to carry out a licensing regime and to take enforcement action against unlicensed activities. We need to progress on both these fronts. It would be interesting to discuss with the noble Lord why he did not seek to extend the remit from the two sectors that were mentioned in the original Act.
We have concerns about extending the regime to new sectors without clear evidence that that represents the most effective and efficient approach. Licensing affects the compliant business and the rogue gangmaster alike. The majority of gangmaster businesses are highly compliant small and medium-sized enterprises that are generating employment and economic growth for the UK. We would not want to burden them unnecessarily with regulation.
Simply extending the current licensing regime into new sectors would not necessarily improve efforts to tackle exploitative employers who flout the law. We need to focus on seeking and bringing to justice serious criminals who enslave innocent victims. So we wish to see a GLA with a strong focus on anti-slavery and worker exploitation that will support the Government’s broader strategy on modern slavery. We are working for that through an approach that builds on the GLA’s already excellent work.
I will set out some of the work that is already happening to develop the GLA. Bringing it into the Home Office has already increased collaboration and capability through easier contact with other law enforcement agencies engaged in addressing and disrupting serious criminal activity, including human trafficking for worker exploitation in the UK. The GLA is playing a full part in the better business compliance partnerships—a programme that will begin operation shortly. These pilots will look at more efficient ways of bringing together a wide range of compliance and enforcement officers locally. We expect the GLA to bring knowledge and experience to the problems identified in these areas to tackle worker exploitation and illegal working.
The GLA is working with the University of Derby to devise training and to develop an anti-slavery training academy for use by supply chain businesses. This will build on the GLA’s excellent existing collaboration with business in its regulated sectors. The GLA is well placed to tackle the serious worker exploitation that lies between the more technical compliance offences that fall to be investigated by HMRC and the serious and organised crimes that are addressed by the National Crime Agency.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee raised the concerns of the CBI, which we share, about the appropriateness of this measure and the expansion not just into other sectors but of the remit of the GLA. We have a very good working agency in the GLA and it is tempting to extend it beyond its natural remit too quickly and without due consideration of all the factors that would be required to make entirely sure that any extension was appropriate and as efficient as the GLA.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, mentioned the inadequacy of the fines and the sentencing. Sentencing is a matter for the courts and there have been some low fines issued against convicted unlicensed gangmasters, but she may be reassured to know that the first custodial sentence for an offence under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act was imposed in December 2013 when a Lithuanian national was given seven years for operating without a licence. He ran an organised crime operation in Norfolk and controlled scores of workers brought over from his homeland, using tactics including debt bondage, psychological and physical intimidation, and violence. We have heard from other noble Lords of some appalling examples of the way in which workers can be treated by gangmasters. Fines have been increased for magistrates’ courts and Crown Courts, depending on the seriousness of the offence, so hopefully the levity of the fines is currently being tackled.
I can assure the House that there is a great deal of work going on within government to improve the work of the GLA and to consider its future. We will, of course, ensure that today’s contributions are considered during that work and we will further consider whether it might be expanded in sector or in remit. For the moment we do not feel that this particular legislation and these particular amendments are the best way of moving forward, but obviously we will discuss this again and I hope that meanwhile noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I am very pleased to hear of the work that is going on. I do not know whether I missed it but is any work being undertaken to obtain the evidence of the need for an extension of the remit and an extension into other sectors? Many of us have been told about this but more evidence is needed. Is work being undertaken by the Government to satisfy themselves in response to the sorts of concerns that have been expressed? I accept that the Minister may not have that information now but I think that it is a question which it is appropriate to ask at this point.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It is indeed. I do not have that evidence directly to hand but it is probably something that the University of Derby will be considering in its work in investigating and reviewing this.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, pursuant to that point, would the Minister also look at the evidence that I referred to earlier from the University of Durham, which looked at the mandate, the remit and the resources available to the gangmasters? In the case I referred to in 2013 they found that the gangmaster had given no safety equipment, issued no guidance and had no knowledge of the sea or the tides, and yet 17 eastern European workers were exposed to what was potentially a fatal situation in the Ribble estuary. Surely that demonstrates that something is amiss here and that we need to do more. Perhaps between now and Report we could look further at the empirical evidence that is available.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, that is an excellent idea. We will do that and come back at Report.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. He ought to be proud of his baby, which is very successful. It is doing extremely well and is very well regarded. It has been running for something like 10 years, so when the Minister talks about not acting too quickly, I wonder what period of time we need if 10 years is not seen to be very long.
I am actually asking for something very modest. I understand perfectly well that the wording that I have put forward may not be at all what the Government want. All I am really asking them to do is to lay down a marker for future Governments to have the power to do this. To have a power does not require the Government to take action. There is all too much legislation with all too many enabling clauses which we all know never come to fruition, so it is no skin off the nose of the Government to put something down that enables another Government, by regulation, to put forward extensions to the powers and the remit and the various things that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has suggested at some future appropriate stage. It might be in five years’ time or even 10 but it will be there and something can be done without the Government having to find a vehicle in primary legislation to achieve it.
Lord Rosser
“( ) A slavery and human trafficking statement by a commercial organisation must contain specific information in relation to the steps they have taken in the following areas—
(a) accountability for tackling modern slavery and forced labour, including policy commitments, resourcing and actions to exercise due diligence,(b) investigation, monitoring and auditing of modern slavery and forced labour risks in the UK and throughout their global supply chains,(c) support and access to remedy for victims of forced labour and modern slavery, and(d) training of staff and suppliers, and access to expertise and advice.”
Lord Rosser
My Lords, the movement the Government have made on this issue during the last stages of the Bill’s progress through the other place is welcome. We cannot accept products made using slave labour being sold here if we are determined to tackle modern slavery in this country. Over four out of five members of the public in this country want legislation on this issue, as do the overwhelming majority of companies themselves. The public will want to be satisfied that progress is being made to eliminate modern slavery in businesses and in supply chains, since awareness has arisen in the light of some high-profile cases that slavery or forced labour can be and is associated with the production of goods for major UK companies.
The public will want to be satisfied that the provisions of this Bill will lead to the end of products made using slave labour being sold on our streets. Although most commercial organisations are tackling this issue, it can be hard to see and measure tangible progress. There needs to be a way for consumers in particular to be able to judge the relative performance in this area of companies whose products or services they may wish to purchase. To achieve this, there is a need to introduce mandatory reporting requirements to ensure that companies adopt similar processes and approaches in reporting, which is what this amendment seeks to do. This will also help create the level playing field that responsible companies want to see and is the reason why so many companies are seeking effective legislation on this matter.
The Bill refers to a commercial organisation being required to prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement, which is defined as,
“a statement of the steps the organisation has taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place … in any of its supply chains, and … in any part of its own business, or … a statement that the organisation has taken no such steps”.
The relevant clause, Clause 51, goes on to say that the Secretary of State,
“may issue guidance about the duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section”,
and that the guidance,
“may … include guidance about the kind of information which may be included in a slavery and human trafficking statement”.
Indeed, the Home Secretary’s title appears all over Clause 51.
While that clause goes on to say that,
“The duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section are enforceable by the Secretary of State bringing civil proceedings”,
it appears that the duty in the Bill in respect of preparing a slavery and human trafficking statement extends no further than producing a statement of the steps that the organisation has, or has not, taken. There is no duty imposed on what kind of information should be provided to substantiate or provide some specifics on the steps taken, since that requirement will be in the form of guidance which “may” be issued by the Secretary of State and which “may” be included in a slavery and human trafficking statement.
Thus, guidance, in effect, may not be issued at all. If it is—and the guidance may be specific or generalised—it is optional whether the kind of information that it suggests should be included in a slavery and human trafficking statement is actually included. Frankly, that is all pretty vague and woolly. It certainly does not ensure that companies provide sufficient information to be able to judge whether they are effectively addressing the issue of modern slavery in their own organisations and in supply chains and taking effective steps to ensure that, if modern slavery or exploitation exists, it is being eliminated.
If the Government believe that the prospects of civil proceedings will be rather more potent than I have suggested, perhaps the Minister could spell out the situations in which they could be initiated under the terms of the Bill, beyond a commercial organisation failing to produce a statement of the steps that it has, or has not, taken during the financial year to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place. Are the Government saying that, under the terms of Clause 51(9), civil proceedings can be brought on other grounds and, if so, in respect of which other duties imposed on commercial organisations by the clause?
Our amendment seeks to set out the specific information that must be provided in a slavery and human trafficking statement by a commercial organisation in relation to the steps that they have taken to ensure that modern slavery is not taking place. The requirement is information that must be provided, so if it is not provided that could be the subject of the civil proceedings. If the information is provided but suggests that very little is being done, that fact will be exposed in a way that would not happen under Clause 51 as it stands.
Our amendment would also better enable meaningful comparisons of the performance of different commercial organisations, in addressing and eradicating modern slavery in their own organisations and supply chains, to be made by consumers and other interested parties, including shareholders, relevant voluntary organisations and the media, in a way that Clause 51 does not provide. It would also better enable interested parties to examine whether what is said in slavery and human trafficking statements in fact represents an accurate assessment of the situation, or whether they are statements whose relationship to the facts is not immediately obvious.
The ability for interested parties to compare the performance in this field of different companies, and the knowledge that the content of statements which have to address specific points could be checked for their fairness and accuracy, will act as an incentive for commercial organisations to address properly the issue of modern slavery in their businesses and supply chains, because of the reputational damage likely to be caused if it is shown that their performance on this issue is poor, or that the slavery and human trafficking statements they produce—which, under our amendment, would have to contain the specific information laid down—are not as accurate as they might have been. That situation, and the pressure that it will place on commercial organisations to act, will not be there under the requirements of Clause 51. I simply ask the Government: how do they believe that the wording in Clause 51 provides a means of checking effectively on what some commercial organisations are doing in comparison with others, and of being able to check on the accuracy of the content of a slavery and human trafficking statement?
While Clause 51 is most welcome as movement on this issue by the Government, with its vagueness, its repeated use of “may” and its guidance rather than requirements, the clause is based too much on the “It’ll be alright on the night” approach. That is, frankly, not adequate on a matter as serious as this, involving the exploitation of and contempt for other human beings. This is something impacting on our own doorsteps, since it involves the goods and services that we buy. We need to get Clause 51 right first time. We need to place prominent emphasis on the position of those who are being exploited and to ensure that the terms and requirements in the Bill are strong enough to address and eliminate, over not too long a time, the evil that is modern slavery where it exists in businesses and in their supply chains. I beg to move.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Rosser on this amendment. I feel extremely strongly about this as, throughout this evening, we have heard about not having enough money but we have to remember that we are talking about people. They are not robots or goods; they are human beings. It is really important to remember that when we talked earlier about the cost of implementing this, we are talking about saving people’s lives and ensuring that they have a life as good as we have, or even better.
The way I see this operating is that accountability in companies should be handled by their procurement department. Every large and small company has a procurement department or somebody who goes to the middle companies that they order from. We should not say that the middle people should be responsible. The companies should be able to tell us and, if necessary, go and inspect where and how the goods are made, and how the people are paid. They spend enough time on decorating, branding and PR, but instead of spending so much time and money on those things, they should spend it in their new procurement department. Some of them have these procurement departments; I see them as being as important as health and safety has become, thanks to the way that Governments have pushed that forward.
It is so that the companies can say, when the audit is done every year and in their annual report, that they have visited the factories and the building sites. It may be something that the construction industry here is responsible for in Bahrain, Beijing or Qatar. This should apply not just to companies but to government departments, when we are assisting as museums or parts of new universities are built abroad. What we are trying to say is that every company and organisation involved in labour or goods, abroad or here, should be audited and that the procurement department should be responsible. “May” is not strong enough; we have to say that this is to be done annually in the audit and that it can be inspected and questioned.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, at the end of Second Reading the Minister, referring to one noble Lord—but I think it might have applied to many of us—commented that he spent a minute welcoming the Bill and then several minutes asking for more. Clearly, this clause falls into that category.
I have tabled Amendments 97B to 97E, which come from a meeting that a number of us had with the Minister, after which we were looking for a peg on which he could hang the very helpful assurances given in that meeting. I appreciate that this is a developing area of work for the Government. As has been said, Clause 51 has not been in the Bill for very long. It is also clear that many colleagues feel that it needs to be strengthened. My amendments would provide a power for the Secretary of State to make regulations about the form of the statement and how it is to be reported—something that particularly concerned those who have spoken and features in briefings that we have had. They would also allow the Secretary of State to issue regulations about the duties imposed on commercial organisations, not just guidance.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, the Government are to be congratulated on putting Clause 51 down. It is a very important clause and a huge relief to see it here after the Select Committee of which I was a member made considerable noise about it in its report. So it is very good. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, says, having said something is good, we always want a bit more. I follow on from what she is saying.
The amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in particular, are those that I would support. There are two points that I am particularly concerned about. Who monitors the statements and to whom will the statements be given? What is being suggested—which might be a good idea—is providing a copy of the slavery and human trafficking statement to anyone who makes a written request for one. However, that requires someone to do it. It may be that in some relatively unknown company—which may not have a very good track record but may not have been exposed—no one would ask. I appreciate that there would be regulations, but my suggestion, as the Minister will remember, was that the commissioner should receive copies of the statement, and that the commissioner should monitor. He seems the most obvious person to do it.
The second point that worries me is the duties imposed. Clause 51(9) says:
“The duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section are enforceable by the Secretary of State bringing civil proceedings in the High Court”.
So far, so good, but what is the purpose of an injunction? Just bring civil proceedings. It should be much broader. Generally, injunctions are to tell people not to do something. There are mandatory injunctions, but they are rather limited in their use. I just do not understand why the only duty imposed on a commercial organisation by the Secretary of State would be an injunction. That ought to be looked at with rather more care, because why on earth can you not impose penalties or seek damages?
There are all these various regulators, both in the United States and the United Kingdom, which regulate banks and organisations and impose enormous fines. Why on earth can the Secretary of State not do that if there is an obvious example of a company that is not only not producing statements, but is not checking whether, right down the line of its supply chain, there is a company supplying it with the goods that it is selling which is acting as a slave owner? A penalty seems the most obvious thing.
I really do think that subsection (9) is utterly inadequate and something in particular that should be looked at. The commissioner should have some powers at least to look at these statements, but the Secretary of State should have much stronger powers to deal with defaulters. I ask the Government to look at this again.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions to this debate—and the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, for moving his amendment—and for the wide welcome that has been given to the clause. I will bask in that statement of welcome just for a couple of seconds, because it probably will not endure for very long. As is the case not only in Part Six but in all parts of the Bill, I totally understand the impatience of the Committee and of civil society on this issue. There is a wrong that is happening out there and we all want to tackle it. We want to go after the perpetrators and stop the abuse as much as possible.
I will deal with some of the issues that have been raised in some general opening remarks and, if the Committee will bear with me, I will put some remarks relating to the Government’s position on the record. I am also conscious that we are now coming to three groups that look at the supply chain from slightly different angles. Therefore, some of the issues and comments will overlap.
I certainly subscribe to the view of my noble friend Lady Hamwee. I refer to my own experience in supply chains because I did my MBA dissertation in China, in Qingdao, where I was commissioned to research Nike footwear factories and analyse how they were performing against Nike’s standard and code—the apparel industry code, as I recall. We found some amazing stories, which made me very alert to the issues.
There is one issue that is worth putting on the record at this point. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned the statistic that four-fifths of the public want us to go further and want more information on this. Although the factories were located in China, they were operated by Korean companies. Part of the reason those factories were being driven so hard was that the consumers were not prepared to pay the market price for the footwear. They wanted more and more features and more and more design intricacies, but they did not want to pay any more for them. Therefore, the price had to come down. The intricacies of the design meant that the level of injuries that workers received in these factories was substantially higher. So part of the debate here is about how to engage the consumers in this. Part of it is about providing information, but the other part is to say that they cannot be exempt from the process. Yes, it is something for government and for business, but it is also something for consumers.
That very helpful meeting was triggered by the timely debate initiated at the end of October by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, which came out with perfect timing because the debate was on or around the day when the new clause was published in another place. Then we had the follow-up meeting and a helpful discussion about what could be done, and some very good ideas were generated there. A lot of those ideas are now working their way through the policy machine to be tested for feasibility, perhaps to come back at a later stage of the Bill.
A number of the points that were raised then are effectively about whether we should be prescriptive in the Bill or try to engage with the industry and business to make them aware of the risks that they face of reputational damage, in an age where often the biggest item on a balance sheet is not a physical asset but good will towards the brand, which disappears very quickly when you find yourself on the front page of a newspaper or in a TV documentary, having not checked your supply chain sufficiently. That is also a reason why investors, such as major pension funds and public sector pension funds, should be looking at the companies that they invest in and asking the question: are their supply chains robust and checked? We should look at that area.
Meanwhile, we are engaging in a consultation. I know that there are many consultations; it is a good job that the noble Lord, Lord Warner, is not here or I think he would be intervening at this point. The reality is that it is a tough time out there for businesses and we want them to succeed and develop, so we want to try to take them with us as far as we can without being too prescriptive. We have been talking to a list of organisations and stakeholders, and it might be useful for the record to say that we are talking to the Ethical Trading Initiative—I know that that is something that the noble Lord, Lord Young, is involved in, as is the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, who has done a lot of work in this area—the British Retail Consortium, the Engineering Employers’ Confederation, the Association of Labour Providers, the CBI, high street retailers including Next, Primark and Marks & Spencer and supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and the Co-op. We have also been engaging with other NGOs, including Unseen and the Environmental Justice Foundation, as well as working with Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers. I think that it is useful to place on the record that meaningful consultation is going on here to see how we can get the changes that we all want to see.
That consultation will formally start next month and follow the usual guidelines that we now have for consultations. It will last for three months; therefore, we will probably not see its results until the Bill has—we hope—received Royal Assent. That is why it is phrased in the present format about regulations coming forward with regard to how that will be applied.
I turn to the specific questions. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked whether Clause 51 allows enforcement by way of injunction. So far in the Bill, I have learnt this much: when talking about matters legal, I had better take my own injunction and consult my colleagues at the Home Office in detail before responding on the record. I will respond in writing on that point.
The duties are a duty to prepare an annual slavery and human trafficking statement, and to publish it prominently on the organisation’s website homepage or, if it does not have a website, to provide a copy on request. It was that latter point that the noble Baroness referred to. Who is meant to see that? The many NGOs, which are doing terrific work in this area and being vigilant in monitoring organisations, trade unions and other organisations should all be paying attention to what that statement says and holding companies to account for it. Civil society and the media will also be able to look at it, and if it is not there then that raises another set of questions. The idea is to provide the information to the public domain in the first place and then allow people to scrutinise it further.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee asked what role the Government were going to play in this. There are two constructive roles that the Government can have. The first is through the interdepartmental ministerial group on modern slavery. I mentioned this yesterday and listed the departments; the noble Baroness mentioned the Foreign Office in her remarks, but it goes much wider than that. It includes the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Education. I will not go through the whole list.
Lord Hylton
While the Minister is on the point about the interdepartmental group, will it recognise—I hope that it will—that British consumers have shown that they are willing to pay a higher price for an ethical product as a result of the fair trade campaign and fair trade labelling? Secondly, if I were a purchaser, which I am not, I would steer very clear of bricks made in Pakistan or matches made in India, knowing that many of them are produced by either bonded labour or child labour.
Lord Bates
Those are very good points well made. My home town, Gateshead, is the proud home to Traidcraft, which does tremendous work in this area doing ethically sourced coffees and foods, which are often a particular problem, but I do not want to get into advertising around Christmastime otherwise I will get into a whole other set of problems. Ultimately the consumer has great power here, although perhaps they do not realise it. In the same way that they have the power to drive down prices and standards around the world, they also have the opportunity to drive them up through their purchasing patterns.
The interdepartmental ministerial group is one part of this but I want to talk about another important part: what the Government can do. The Government can do more by putting their own house in order. The Government are a huge procurer—I do not know whether that is the right term—and a major purchaser of goods and services. It is important that we do everything that we can to prevent modern slavery from infiltrating our public sector supply chains. Taxpayers’ money should not be allowed to drive demand for these heinous crimes. That is why we are already taking concerted action on this issue. Individual departments have already taken clear steps. For example, the NHS standard terms and conditions for suppliers have clear conditions on labour standards in the NHS supply chain, and it has developed a labour standards assurance system that encompasses issues on forced labour.
The interdepartmental ministerial group on modern slavery will help to encourage best practice across the Government and the devolved Administrations. Home Office standard terms and conditions already require compliance with the law, which will of course soon include ensuring that suppliers have complied with our transparency and supply chain measure. We are also strengthening the labour standards section within our annual corporate social responsibility assessment in order to seek specific assurances from the Home Office’s largest suppliers that they have policies in place to address the risk of modern slavery. In addition, we are currently seeking ways to go further and require specific assurances from suppliers about steps that they are taking to stamp out modern slavery, which is an approach that we hope to then roll out across central Government. As a result, we are already proactively going beyond the measures in the Bill to address this issue. This is a bit like what we are asking people to do: to make a public statement and then be held to account for it. I wanted to put that on the record and expect to be held to account for it, being careful not to tempt fate too much. It is right that that is where we start.
With that rather longer than expected introduction, aware that we have two further groups to come in this area of consideration and having put those points on the record, perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, would accept that as a response on the Government’s position on his amendment and consider withdrawing it at this stage.
Lord Rosser
Before I do that, did the Minister early in his reply refer to coming back at a later stage or not?
Lord Bates
Coming back at a later stage to spell this out in greater detail?
Lord Bates
I do not think I actually said that. I think I related it to the consultation. The Government’s position is: let us have a consultation, let us try to bring industry with us. The consultation will start in January, it will finish at the end of March and it will then be evaluated, so we will probably be beyond Royal Assent before that is available. That was in my statement. I may have alluded to the fact—this may have given rise to the confusion—that we will be coming back to this issue in subsequent groups in Committee today, but the consultation will extend beyond Royal Assent.
Lord Rosser
I thank the Minister for clarifying that point and for his reply. I suppose one’s observation would naturally be that if the Government had put this in the Bill in the first place or had agreed somewhat earlier to Clause 51, the consultations could have been completed before the Bill had gone through all its stages in Parliament, and we might have been able to have a rather more meaningful debate. That is what happens when a Government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to put something in a Bill as it went through its last stages in the House of Commons.
I am still not clear what the Minister is saying about what action can be taken if a commercial organisation produces the slavery and human trafficking statement but it is a bit thin or vague in its content. The Minister said that the measures under Clause 51(9), civil proceedings, would relate to whether the organisation had actually prepared the statement—which has nothing to do with the content—and published it on its website. It did not address the issue which I raised as to what would happen if the statement was a bit vague in its content. After all, the purpose of my amendment was to stipulate the areas that had to be addressed in the statement. The Minister has not really responded to that point.
Surely, enough information needs to be required in the statement to enable a consumer, a voluntary organisation or the media to form a view on how well or otherwise a company is doing compared to other companies in ensuring that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place in any of its supply chains or any part of its own business. Frankly, the Minister has not said anything to provide me with any comfort that the Government intend to include anything in the Bill that will ensure that the necessary information is provided to enable those meaningful comparisons to be made. In moving the amendment, I referred to the issue of guidance. The Secretary of State “may issue guidance”—it is not “must issue guidance”—which,
“may in particular include guidance about the kind of information which may be included in a slavery and human trafficking statement”.
We still have the problem: what action can actually be taken if the statement is produced and published but is a bit vague in its content and does not really enable the consumer, the voluntary organisation or the media to make a proper and effective assessment of the action that has been taken by that company, compared with other companies, to ensure that slavery and human trafficking is not taking place?
Lord Bates
I did not mean not to give the courtesy of addressing the specific amendment. We believe that it would be for civil society and the wider community to examine and assess whether a company’s statement on its supply chain is sufficient, rather than it being for the Government to do that. While trying to be courteous and respond precisely to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, made, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, asked a specific question about whether the anti-slavery commission might collect data on that. As worded within the anti-slavery commissioner’s remit, he can undertake research, consult, produce documents and engage in education and information. Of course, he is independent. I should have thought that a key part of that might be to consider transparency of supply chains.
Lord Rosser
I can only comment that it is very difficult for civil society to make a judgment if there is not enough information in the statements in the first place. There is no requirement, in my opinion—and there is nothing in what the Minister said to cause me to change my view—in Clause 51 to ensure that the necessary information is provided.
Still, I note what the Minister said in reply. I am obviously disappointed with it, as Clause 51 still does not go far enough and will not enable those judgments to be made by society, whether it be consumers, voluntary organisations, the media or others. That is a matter of regret. However, I note that that is the Government’s position and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
“Slavery and human trafficking statements
(1) For each financial year, a commercial organisation within subsection (2) must prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement.
(2) A commercial organisation is within this subsection if it—
(a) supplies goods or services, and(b) has a total turnover in respect of that financial year of not less than £60 million or such lesser amount as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State.(3) For the purposes of subsection (2)(b) an organisation’s total turnover is to be determined—
(a) by reference to the activities of that organisation worldwide;(b) by aggregating the worldwide turnover of that organisation with any other organisation which forms part of the same group undertaking; and(c) otherwise in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State.(4) A slavery and human trafficking statement for a financial year is—
(a) a statement of the steps the organisation has taken during the financial year to identify and address slavery and human trafficking—and which complies with the minimum requirements set out in subsection (5); or(i) in any of its supply chains, and(ii) in any part of its own business,and which complies with the minimum requirements set out in subsection (5); or(b) a statement that the organisation has taken no such steps with an explanation of why the organisation considers such conduct to be appropriate.(5) A slavery and human trafficking statement shall give details of—
(a) actions taken to assess the risk of the presence of slavery and human trafficking in the organisation’s operations and throughout its supply chains;(b) who has been involved in the assessment of such risks and the extent to which such persons are independent of the organisation;(c) what risks have been identified, and what action has been taken to mitigate any risks which have been identified;(d) whether any slavery or human trafficking has been identified and, if so, what steps have been taken to address it, including action to support victims;(e) the extent to which information for assessment and monitoring has been gathered directly at suppliers’ sites and whether such information has been verified by independent persons; and(f) any such other matters that may be specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State under this section.(6) The organisation must publish the slavery and human trafficking statement in each of the following ways—
(a) if the organisation has a website, it must—(i) publish the slavery and human trafficking statement on that website, and(ii) include a link to the slavery and human trafficking statement in a prominent place on that website’s homepage;(b) upload the slavery and human trafficking statement report to the website maintained for that purpose by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills under subsection (8);(c) an organisation which is obliged to prepare a director’s report in accordance with section 415 of the Companies Act 2006 shall include in that report— (i) the name of any director who has taken responsibility for slavery and human trafficking issues within the organisation (or a statement that no director has taken responsibility),(ii) a fair summary of the slave and human trafficking statement, and(iii) the web address where a copy of the report may be found, or if the company does not have a website a statement that a copy of the report will be provided on written request.(7) If the organisation does not have a website, it must provide a copy of the slavery and human trafficking statement to anyone who makes a written request for one and must do so before the end of the period of 30 days beginning with the day on which the request is received.
(8) The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills shall maintain a website—
(a) on which it shall publish slavery and human trafficking statements which are uploaded to the website or delivered to it under subsection (6)(b);(b) in a form in which the published data is freely searchable by the public.(9) The Secretary of State—
(a) may issue guidance about the duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section; and(b) must publish any such guidance.(10) Evidence under subsection (9) may in particular set out the kind of information in addition or supplemental to that set out in subsection (5) which may be included in a slavery and human trafficking statement.
(11) The duties imposed on commercial organisations by this section are enforceable by any of the Secretary of State, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Financial Reporting Council; or such other person as may be specified by way of regulation, any of whom may bring civil proceedings in the High Court for an injunction or, in Scotland, for specific performance of a statutory duty under section 45 of the Court of Session Act 1988.
(12) Where a commercial organisation is in breach of any duty under this section the commercial organisation and every director, partner, or other person occupying an equivalent position shall have committed an offence.
(13) It is a defence for any person charged with an offence under subsection (12) to prove that he took all reasonable steps to ensure compliance with this section.
(14) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (12) is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum and on conviction on indictment to a fine.
(15) This section shall be reviewed by the Secretary of State 3 years after the section comes into force and following this review the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a report assessing the effectiveness of the section and recommending whether any amendments should be made.
(16) For the purposes of this section—
“commercial organisation” means—
(a) a body corporate (wherever incorporated) which carries on a business, or part of a business, in any part of the United Kingdom, or(b) a partnership (wherever formed) which carries on a business, or part of a business, in any part of the United Kingdom,and for this purpose “business” includes a trade or profession;“group undertaking” shall have the meaning set out in section 1162 of the Companies Act 2006;
“partnership” means—
(a) a partnership within the Partnership Act 1890,(b) a limited partnership registered under the Limited Partnerships Act 1907, or (c) a firm, or an entity of a similar character, formed under the law of a country outside the United Kingdom;“slavery and human trafficking” means—
(a) conduct which constitutes an offence under any of the following—(a) section 1, 2 or 4 of this Act, (b) section 57, 58, 58A or 59 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (trafficking for sexual exploitation), (c) section 22 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 (traffic in prostitution etc), (d) section 4 of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Act 2004 (trafficking for exploitation), (e) section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 (slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour), (f) section 47 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 (slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour), or(b) conduct which would constitute an offence in a part of the United Kingdom under any of those provisions if the conduct took place in that part of the United Kingdom;“supply chain” means those raw materials, purchases, processes, products, labour, services and transportation by means of which the company’s goods and services whether or not for sale to customers are acquired, manufactured, assembled or otherwise produced from their original source up to and including their sale or provision to the company’s customers;
but a company’s supply chain shall not include those products and services that are acquired, rented, leased or otherwise used by a company for a purpose which is incidental or ancillary to the matters referred to in the definition of supply chain above.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, said, this is the second of three amendments that consider supply chains. It is an issue that I flagged up at Second Reading. The amendment emerged from a meeting which I chaired in this building with many of the charities and non-governmental organisations involved in this question. I particularly thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of Cradley and Lady Mobarik, and my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth, who are all signatories to the amendment. I also thank those Members of your Lordships’ House, some of whom are here this evening, who signed a letter to the Times last Saturday supporting the arguments outlined in the amendment—about 20 Members from all sides. On the same day, the Daily Telegraph published a letter signed by 19 of the leading charities and non-governmental organisations, also supporting the proposal.
Inevitably, we want in the amendment to take the opportunity, while legislation is before your Lordships’ House, to tackle the problem, not to leave it, as the Minister said, to a consultation and review process, which can seem like the long grass. The Government have every reason to be very proud of the Bill. I welcome the fact that they introduced Clause 51—Part 6—at a late stage in another place, but clearly it was not subject to all the pre-legislative scrutiny that everything else in the Bill received. There was some, but not much, and it was not considered in Committee in another place. Therefore, we have a particular duty, while these issues are before your Lordships’ House, to spend some time on them. There are 16 subsections in the amendment, so I hope that the patience of your Lordships’ House, even at this late stage in our deliberations on the Bill, will not be too exhausted as I try to describe why so many Members and organisations outside the House feel that they are necessary. All the signatories of both letters I have mentioned welcome the inclusion of a new requirement for business to report on slavery and forced labour in their supply chains, but the provision must be strengthened if it is to drive real change in company supply chains.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has set out the case in his usual full and very effective way, and I rise to speak briefly to support the amendment.
I begin by addressing something that the Minister said at the beginning about consumers having a role and a responsibility here. I absolutely agree. If we pose the question of how consumers will be best educated and alerted to the issues, the answer is that it is by a good law. A good law is not one which just sets out certain generalities, but one that has some bite to it, some detail. As the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, stated so effectively on the previous group of amendments, however welcome it is to have Clause 51, there should be some requirement for more detail on the transparency statements and it should be possible for the general public and NGOs to have easy access to all these statements so that they can compare one thing with another.
The Minister talked about the discussions and dialogues which are going to take place with business. That is absolutely right because business has to be drawn along with this and to be fully supportive of it. I think the businesses involved would find it helpful to have a little more bite about this clause before they begin to think about how best to put it into practice.
I have a particular concern in this area, as already mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, as chair of the All-Party Group for Dalits because they suffer disproportionately in every aspect of trafficking and enslavement, particularly in this area of bonded labour and different kinds of exploitation. I very much hope that the Minister will feel able, after further consultation, to bring back a clause which has a little more bite to it. I think it would be warmly welcomed around the House. It may not require all the detail that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has, but perhaps the Minister could look at the amendment and the amendment put forward in the previous group by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, about statements and see whether there are certain details that he would be able to take out and bring back to the House on Report.
Baroness McDonagh (Lab)
I shall speak to Amendment 98A and support Amendment 98. I start by declaring an interest as patron of the Lily foundation, an anti sex-trafficking charity operating in India and the UK. Is it not absolutely fantastic that we are here on all sides of the Chamber to support a Bill that we all want to see enacted? That is a very unusual occurrence. In that spirit of unity, I am pleased that this amendment is being supported by me and the noble Lord, Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick.
Our concern is that this clause on supply chains will turn out to be warm words and good intentions. Indeed, when assemblies all around the world have sought to phrase legislation in these terms, they have rarely been able to meet their objectives. If the Bill cannot meet its objectives, what then? That is what this small enabling amendment covers. It would allow the Home Secretary to intervene and require extremely large companies to risk assess, create an action plan and audit. We think this is a very simple thing to do and would welcome a meeting with the Minister to discuss it further.
Let me be clear about the companies to which this amendment would apply. I understand that the Government would be concerned if it were to apply to all companies. I understand that placing such a regulatory responsibility on SMEs would be extremely difficult. Indeed, our amendment would not even apply to large companies; it would apply to really large global entities, which are very specifically defined as companies with a turnover of £1 billion per annum. Not only that, there is a secondary locking qualifier, which is that they would be in the wholesale, retail, manufacturing and construction sectors, in which you find more people who are working in servitude in the supply chains.
I ask the Minister and the Government to accept this small enabling amendment. It is a safety net to ensure that all the hard work in tackling this terror will not have been in vain. If it is needed—and if the Bill does what is intended, it will not be needed—it will apply to a small number of companies. Behaviour change in the 124 companies which would qualify would have the biggest impact on the greatest number of people and would bring up the standards of all.
Baroness Kennedy of Cradley
My Lords, I support Amendment 98, which was moved by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool.
The case for legislating for transparency in supply chains as part of the Bill has been well made and it is very welcome that it is being progressed by the Government through Clause 51. Now, as many noble Lords have said, the task is to get the detail of the legislation right and agree between us a well crafted clause that levels the playing field for business, informs investors, shareholders and consumers and drives change to end slavery in supply chains. I support Amendment 98 because it would do exactly that.
Amendment 98 would rewrite Clause 51 by adding, where necessary, elements of detail to ensure that it is more meaningful, effective and workable. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, in line with the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act, which came into force in 2012, the amendment defines the threshold as not less than £60 million and, most importantly, includes the term “group undertaking” when determining the total turnover. That is important because it allows multinational companies that may have small operations in the UK to be covered by this legislation.
We all want the Bill to have global reach. Therefore, having a way to ensure the inclusion of all large foreign companies that provide services to the UK is vital. Clause 51 is ill defined in parts and Amendment 98 seeks to correct that in a number of ways. First, it suggests a simple change in the language to make the intent of the clause explicit. In the Modern Slavery Strategy the Government make it clear that they want this legislation to ensure that businesses investigate and report on modern-day slavery through the annual statements they are required to produce. It is therefore important that that aim is made explicit in the Bill. Subsection (4)(a) is consequently amended to confirm that the statement is specifically to “identify and address” the issue of slavery and human trafficking. It is its primary aim.
It is also important that the remit of this statement is more tightly defined. The clearer this legislation is, the better for business and consumers alike. Subsection (5) of Amendment 98 provides a framework for the statements. It makes sure that minimum disclosure measures are included in the Bill: the need for risk assessments; the need to set out who has been involved in identifying the risks; what actions have been taken to mitigate the risks; and what has been the impact of those actions. The “how” should be left to guidance. Without those minimum criteria, as other noble Lords have said, comparisons between companies will be impossible to make and the level playing field desired by good businesses will be difficult to achieve.
We also need to look to and learn from the Californian Act and not repeat its mistakes. The learning from the application of the California legislation to date also shows us why it is necessary to be clear in the legislation about what you want to achieve and what you expect business to report. In California hundreds of organisations have issued statements in line with the Act, but there is a wide variation in the information provided in those statements. Some have disclosed meaningless information, some have disclosed misleading information, and a few—perhaps worst of all—have thwarted the legislation and disclosed that they do nothing and are indifferent to the issue of slavery in their supply chains. For example, Caterpillar Incorporated, a multinational company reported to hold $89 billion in assets, which manufactures its products and components in 110 factories worldwide in high-risk countries such as India and Indonesia, issued a woefully inadequate statement. Krispy Kreme Doughnuts issued a statement of just 182 words, using them to say that as regards slavery it does not verify product supply chains, conduct audits of suppliers or require direct suppliers to certify materials.
Getting businesses to produce statements of that kind is not what this part of the Bill is about, and I do not believe it is what the Government intended it to be about. Clause 51 is not a paper exercise for businesses to write down in 200 words or less that they do not do any of this kind of work and do not intend to start. It is a serious measure that we need businesses to engage in and which good businesses want to engage positively with, properly and on an equal footing with each other. It is not fair that the good businesses that do excellent work, actively searching for evidence of exploitation, are being undercut and undermined. That is why having minimum criteria in the Bill is vital. Setting out those minimum criteria would not make the task more burdensome for business; the task—the production of the statement—remains the same. Minimum measures just give a framework for the task so that a level playing field between businesses is achieved.
Proper monitoring is also vital and, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, it is not currently clear how this part of the Bill will be properly monitored and enforced. Amendment 98 seeks to address that, too. Again, if we look to learn from the experience of the Californian Act, here some companies have ignored the Act completely. Research in January of this year quoted 85 companies as ignoring the legislation. That level of disregard is unacceptable, and we should make sure it is not replicated in the UK. Amendment 98 also ensures that a named government department receives and makes sure that the statements are easily publically available. It ensures that there will be consequences for blatant flouting of the legislation—as we have seen in California—by companies that do not comply or refuse to comply. Most importantly, it makes sure that compliance with this clause is a corporate responsibility. You need leadership from the top to change attitudes and make things happen.
I also very much support the requirement for a review after three years, which is included in Amendment 98. This part of the Bill in particular, as it is a completely new area of work, would benefit from a re-evaluation over a specified time period. Formally being able to hear the views of businesses, NGOs, trade unions and consumers on how this legislation operates in practice, and committing to bring forward changes where needed, would be a positive step forward.
I hope that the Government can accept much—if not all—of what is included in Amendment 98 and that they will look seriously at Amendment 98A in the name of my noble friend Lady McDonagh. She has clearly set out the impact multinational corporations can have in the fight against slavery. The 124 companies to which she referred, which operate in high-risk sectors and which have a combined turnover of approximately $1 trillion, can clearly influence the working conditions in tens of thousands of workplaces and help many millions of workers across the world. The power of this small group of companies is huge. They have the power to reform their business models, insist on inspection regimes, support local efforts to empower workers and insist on decent wages and formal contracts for all workers here in the UK and across the world. Her amendment brings home to us that we cannot rid the world of slavery without the help of big business.
The provisions in my noble friend’s amendment would enable the economic strength of these companies to be a force for good—something they want to be and something we desperately need them to be. Many if not all those companies understand the reputational damage and loss of both consumer confidence and market share they will suffer if they are found to be sourcing from suppliers which use exploitative labour. Most companies want supply chains that reflect their brand, not brands that reflect their supply chains, so I am sure that, like Amendment 98, this amendment will not be seen as a burden but an advantage. I hope that both amendments and what they set out can be accepted by the Government.
Baroness Mobarik (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I am grateful to him for tabling it.
I have put my name to this amendment because it would do two important things. First, it will give businesses more certainty and clarity when producing the slavery and human trafficking statements required of them. That clarity is vital in saving businesses time. Secondly, however, it would also provide consumers with the information they need to hold businesses to account. Without the clarity that the amendment would provide, I am concerned that stakeholders, investors and campaigners will not be able to play their part effectively in helping stamp out the abhorrent practices that exist in some of our supply chains.
The media have done an excellent job in highlighting just how far slavery and forced labour have penetrated the supply chains for many of the goods and services that we take for granted, from basic foodstuffs to electronic goods, clothing and fashion. But modern slavery exists across the globe, and whichever form it takes, business supply chains are involved in some way or another. Slavery in supply chains is closer than we often realise. A couple of weeks ago, the owner of a bed factory in West Yorkshire that supplied retail chains such as Next and John Lewis was charged with human trafficking and slavery offences.
Lord Rosser
My Lords, I will be brief. These two amendments are wider-ranging than my amendment but their intentions and objectives are similar, and I wait to see whether they will elicit a more enthusiastic government response. I also await the response to what I believe to be the request of the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for discussions involving the Government on this matter before the next stage in the passage of the Bill through this House.
Lord Bates
I cannot quite match the noble Lord’s brevity, but I will try to go as far as I can, because some interesting proposals have been made. The first was the idea, suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, of reconvening, between now and Report, his group, including the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, on the issues of the supply chain. That would be a very helpful thing to do, and I would be happy to take part in it. The noble Lord talked about the process—the journey that we are on—starting when the new clause was tabled. Some may use the term “kicking and screaming”, but I think that a sinner who repenteth ought to be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven—and into Parliament. I believe we are making progress down that route.
Many points were made about the regulatory framework, to which the noble Lord referred in great detail. The regulatory framework is setting out the long-term strategy. That is where we want to be. There are some stages to go through, in relation to the point made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth. He raised the desire to see more bite than there is at the moment. I cannot give any assurances that that will be there by the time the Bill reaches Royal Assent. However, by the time of the process of consultation is complete and the guidance has been issued—
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
I thank the Minister for giving way, but will he pay particular attention to the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik? She spoke from the point of view of business and emphasised the fact that businesses would value greater clarity in what was being required of them in these statements and how they were to go about it. I felt that she was making a very important point from the point of view of business.
Lord Bates
I agree, and my noble friend Lady Mobarik made a very good point by making it clear that it is out of enlightened self-interest that business ought to be pursuing these things. We also need to recognise that we introduced into the Companies Act the requirement for ports to carry a statement on human rights. As with so many of the issues raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy and Lady McDonagh, this relates to human rights. You could almost say, without waiting for anything else, that the current legislation that requires a report on human rights could be broadened to include a statement on the human rights of the people involved in the supply chain. Those types of things might give urgency to it. On the assets idea, from my experience of business, nothing grabs the attention better of the chief financial officer, the chief executive or the chairman of the board and the people who invest. The noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, referred to about 20 institutions of the size of Hermes, which is a huge fund, and Rathbone. When they put weight on that, when they hold shares and hold votes to determine who is the chairman of the board and the non-executive directors and what the remuneration of the senior employees should be—that is precisely the type of group that will grab more attention for these important issues than possibly even more specific legislation.
I am conscious of time, but I am also conscious that I want to pay respect to the two tablers of the amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, with an undertaking to meet and continue the dialogue; and to give an assurance that we will do further work, if or when we meet between Committee and Report, when we will have the terms of reference for the consultation to look at. We can get some early responses to that and see what can be done further to reassure the noble Lord that the Government see this very much as a way of starting down the road. As with all these things, business should be aware that once you start putting down legislation such as this, it tends to be a one-way street. You do not go back. If people do not comply and if business does not take it seriously, this Government or future Governments will say that there is a demand and that they need to act to put more legislation down for businesses to comply with. So I hope, with that canter around the issues, but with some specific commitments to look carefully at this, that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, feels able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, the Minister has been generous in how he has dealt with the issues that have arisen, especially at this late hour. I was struck that he talked about how sinners repenteth, when I was thinking more that Ministers are damned if they do and damned if they do not. I am personally appreciative of the fact that the clause is now in the Bill and, of course, it is incumbent on noble Lords to try to build on provisions in the amendment.
One might use another metaphor about the bird in hand. On this occasion there is a Bill in hand, and a legislative opportunity. We cannot come back in another year from now with legislative proposals. This is the time to make them and I do not think that any of us wants to feel that the moment has passed without our doing justice. I reiterate that, because this is something that came into the Bill so late in another place, it is something to which, outside your Lordships’ House, we should give more time and attention. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, Lady McDonagh and Lady Mobarik, as well as my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries of Pentregarth for the contributions that they have made in supporting the principles that underpin this and the other amendment before your Lordships. I am also grateful for the Minister’s willingness to meet those who tabled the amendments and the large array of those involved in this issue.
The Minister said that the important thing was to grab the board’s attention to get them thinking about these things. He is right about the power of investment and resources. I was very struck that Matt Crossman at Rathbone Greenbank Investments, which has more than £900 billion of investment, said:
“It is in the best interests of business to join the fight against modern slavery … Specific, but proportionate, legislation can allow companies to continue making progress, whilst ensuring that firms can no longer turn a blind eye to these issues”.
Naheeda Rashid of Hermes, referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Mobarik, said:
“Companies which are able to demonstrate that they understand and are actively addressing the complexities of the risks in their supply chains will be better placed in managing both their reputation and disruptions to their operations”.
That is what these amendments seek to do—they put real flesh on the bones of Clause 51. I hope that, when the House resumes after the Christmas break, we will have a chance to hold the meetings to which the Minister referred. I hope that Report will not be reached for some weeks, which gives us some time to do that. With the assurances that the Minister has given us, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
“Review
(1) Within 5 years of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must—
(a) carry out a review of the provisions of this Act,(b) carry out a review more broadly about the current position of slavery, servitude, forced or compulsory labour, and human trafficking within the United Kingdom and internationally, and(c) prepare and publish a report setting out the conclusions of the review.(2) The report must in particular—
(a) set out the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act, (b) assess the extent to which those objectives have been achieved,(c) assess whether those objectives remain appropriate and, if so, the extent to which they could be achieved in another way, and(d) consider the strategic plans and annual reports submitted by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner.(3) The Secretary of State must lay the report before Parliament.”
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, I fear I have drawn the short straw and may be exasperating one or two noble Lords, but this is the last amendment and I do not intend to delay the Committee for very long. In many ways, the amendment is self-explanatory: it calls for a review of the legislation within five years of the passing of the Act—the review could come much earlier than that, if it was so desired. The report would,
“set out the objectives intended to be achieved by this Act, … assess the extent to which those objectives have been achieved, … assess whether those objectives remain appropriate … and … consider the strategic plans and annual reports submitted by the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner”.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, the Government will be rightly congratulated when the Bill has gone through all its stages, but, as I think we are all aware, that is only the first stage. What really will count will be how effectively they get the legislation implemented. Therefore, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I am very glad to support his amendment. It is crucial that we review the Bill within five years of its passing into law. In many respects the Bill is pioneering new ground. Obviously, it will turn out that some things are perhaps not quite as effective as we hope that they will be, but I regard this review as crucial to the effectiveness of this legislation. The thought of having a review in five years will also help to focus and sharpen people’s minds as they know that things will be assessed.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I also support the amendment. I am not sure in what year the review should be held. I think to say “within five years” is sensible, but it might well be wiser to do it within three years. This is such an important Bill. As I have said previously, the Government are to be congratulated on bringing it forward and for doing so much to make it work. Although we on the Cross Benches, like noble Lords on other Benches, have been critical from time to time, we are well aware of the effort that the Government have made. However, it is important to make sure that the Bill works. The strategies of government that are not in the legislative process will have to be reviewed, but in reviewing those it will also be important to see whether the legislation is strong enough and working well enough for it to manage the strategies that go with it. I urge the Minister to support the idea that there should, at some stage, be post-legislative scrutiny of this important Bill.
Lord Bates
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for proposing the amendment. The Government are committed to post-legislative scrutiny of legislation under the existing arrangements agreed with Select Committees. The Government believe that post-legislative scrutiny is generally preferable to ad hoc and potentially inconsistent specific statutory requirements in individual Bills. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee’s report into legislative standards praised the Government’s record on post-legislative scrutiny, saying:
“We urge the Government to continue to produce these useful memoranda. In return, we will undertake, and we take this opportunity to encourage other Select Committees to undertake, more visible post-legislative scrutiny work when opportunities arise”.
Since 2012, the House of Lords has established committees on an ad hoc basis specifically to conduct post-legislative scrutiny. I am sure that the House will consider carefully whether the future Modern Slavery Act would be a good candidate for such scrutiny.
However, I would like to place on record once more the Government’s commitment to providing a post-legislative scrutiny memorandum on the Bill within three to five years of Royal Assent. The Government will consult the Home Affairs Committee on the timing of publication of the memorandum, but that is a commitment. In the longer term, the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner will continue to assess the response to modern slavery and how it is provided, and if new forms of abuse emerge. In addition to the commitment of a memorandum in three to five years, we will also have the update of the Modern Slavery Strategy, produced by the interdepartmental ministerial group on modern slavery. We will also have the anti-slavery commissioner’s annual report, which I am sure will be awaited with great interest by Members of your Lordships’ House.
There are therefore a number of opportunities for this type of scrutiny to happen. Having taken part in the Leader’s Group, which considered ways to improve the workings of your Lordships’ House and elsewhere, I have to say that one of the joys of this Bill is that it has been a textbook example of how legislation should work: first, producing a Bill, which is scrutinised in pre-legislative scrutiny. The Government then come back with a revised Bill and go through a meaningful stage in another place where amendments are made. The same happens in this place, so it seems to me absolutely logical that we should not leave the job unfinished but follow it through right to the end. That is why we are very much behind this commitment. We will produce the Explanatory Memorandum to ensure that that post-legislative scrutiny does arise.
Given that this may well be the last time that I am on my feet in Committee, I thank your Lordships for the way in which we have engaged in this very tough and passionate four days. It has given a huge amount of work for officials to think about and work on between now and Report. Somebody once said: “To govern is to choose”. There are going to be so many issues that we are going to have to work on that we will have to engage in some prioritisation about what is absolutely critical to get in the Bill before Royal Assent and what work can be continued under the watchful eyes of your Lordships and the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner thereafter. That work and the meetings will continue and we look forward to making further progress on Report. I thank the noble Lord and ask him to consider withdrawing his amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, if, as the Minister has said, this legislation has been exemplary in the way in which it has been handled, and I think it has been, then I would also say, and I do not think I would be alone in saying this, that the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Garden of Frognal, have been exemplary in the way in which they have treated each of us. I can only speak for myself as a Cross-Bencher, but I suspect that it is a view shared across the Chamber that throughout proceedings we have been treated with great courtesy and thoughtfulness in the way in which the amendments have been considered, not least this amendment. I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he has promised that post-legislative procedures will be put in place. Obviously, I would prefer it to be in the Bill, but he will not be surprised by that. However, I feel very pleased with the assurances that he has given to your Lordships. I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Bates
““child” means a person under the age of 18;”
Lord Bates
“Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (c. 10)9A In Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, in paragraph 32(8) (civil legal services for trafficking victims: definitions), in the definition of “exploitation” for the words from “section” to the end substitute “section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act 2014 (meaning of exploitation for purposes of human trafficking offence in section 2 of that Act);”.”