Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee Report

Friday 28th March 2025 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

12:34

Moved by

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway]

To move that this House takes note of the Report from the Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee The Modern Slavery Act 2015: becoming world-leading again (HL Paper 8).

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to introduce this debate on our report. On behalf of the committee, I begin with a sincere expression of appreciation: to everyone who provided evidence; to our brilliant staff team led by Sabrina Asghar; and to our expert adviser Caroline Haughey KC, a pioneer in the successful prosecution of modern slavery criminals. It is also right to recognise that a step change in victims’ rights was achieved only because of the determination of the then Home Secretary, now the noble Baroness, Lady May, who sponsored the Modern Slavery Act 2015. At the time, this was truly world-leading legislation.

I thank my fellow committee members for their hard work, diligence and dedication. Our deliberations were sometimes challenging, not to say robust, but always, I hope, conducted in good spirit. Special mention should be made of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope, who is unable to participate today, who made the original proposal to establish our committee, and that it should examine whether the Act is still fit for purpose. Last, but certainly not least, I pay tribute to the modern slavery survivors who spoke to our committee and provided feedback on our report. In future, we must go further to ensure that survivors are at the heart of policy-making, not just giving testimony but shaping strategy.

In my contribution, I want to highlight three areas of our report: first, immigration legislation. Our committee concluded that immigration legislation introduced by the last Government had served to undermine support and protection for victims, including the non-punishment principle that was enshrined in the Modern Slavery Act. This has had real-world consequences: making victims more vulnerable, which can only embolden the criminals who exploit them.

We were disturbed by the then Ministers’ attempts to justify this with the unfounded suggestion that the modern slavery system was being gamed. Second-hand anecdotes are never a substitute for hard data. On examination, our committee found no evidence to back up such claims. Can the Minister confirm today that those provisions contained in the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 which weaken modern slavery victims’ rights will be repealed?

In addition, victims are often traumatised and may be reluctant to engage with the authorities. Our committee recommended that the Government set a goal to guarantee every victim a trained and accredited advocate or navigator to support them through the system. It is very welcome that the Government want to expand this scheme, but can the Minister tell us by how much and how fast?

Moreover, the harsh reality is that an employer who sponsors visas still holds the whip hand. What incentive does a worker have to report exploitation when an employer can simply withdraw sponsorship, putting them at risk of destitution and deportation? Sixty days to find another employer sponsor in the same sector means little if the worker has no home, no money and no power.

In contrast, the Australian Government have recently introduced a workplace justice visa, which, in cases of where there is evidence of exploitation, frees the victim from dependence on a bad employer and supports their right to work in any sector. Have the Government made progress in considering such a scheme in the UK?

My second area of focus concerns the care sector. Modern slavery in the UK takes place in many—sometimes overlapping—forms. For example, as we recently saw in the shocking case of modern slavery at a branch of the multinational fast food chain, McDonald’s, labour exploitation can soon lead to sexual exploitation. While the picture of modern slavery is constantly evolving, prevention, regulation and enforcement have not kept pace.

Following an alarming spike in media exposure by investigative journalists, drawing on the great work of NGOs and trade unions, our committee decided to take an in-depth look at modern slavery in the care sector. We found that, in the rush to issue visas to tackle the care recruitment shortage in 2022, the then Government failed to put in place basic controls that could have prevented modern slavery. Does the Minister agree with our committee that organisations should not only register with but be inspected by the Care Quality Commission before they are allowed to sponsor overseas care workers to work in the UK? Does he also agree that, to deter phoenix companies, sponsoring organisations should also be subject to a minimum period of operation first?

Our committee heard evidence of a “continuum of exploitation” that starts with weak union organisation, low pay and insecurity, and runs through to no pay, confiscation of passports and modern slavery. The Government’s promised fair pay agreement to raise labour standards in the care sector offers a real opportunity to disrupt that continuum. When responding to our report’s recommendations for a single enforcement body, the Government promised that the fair work agency

“will be adequately resourced, with powers to proactively investigate and enforce compliance”.

That is welcome, but the Minister will be aware that the current number of labour market inspectors in the UK falls woefully short of the ILO’s recommended minimum standards, leaving us ranked 27th out of 33 OECD countries for labour market inspection. Although I am sure that many would accept that the ILO benchmark cannot be met overnight, can the Minister commit to setting targets for increasing the size of the labour inspectorate and publishing progress towards those targets?

Since our report was published, the Employment Rights Bill has proposed access for trade unions to the workplace so that they can organise and so that extreme exploitation is more likely to be deterred or exposed, tilting the current imbalance of power back towards staff. Can the Minister confirm that that will include care establishments?

My final point is about supply chains. Our committee was concerned to stress that the Department for Business and Trade must rise to its responsibility to help stamp out modern slavery at home and abroad. The Government’s commitment to build on and improve the modern slavery statement registry is welcome. Can the Minister tell us by when that will happen? Will it include revising thresholds for modern slavery reporting, given that most care providers fall well below the current threshold? Can he also reassure us that the promised review of sanctions for non-compliance with reporting rules will deliver penalties tough enough to make a difference and provide proper compensation for those who have suffered slavery?

Moreover, while greater transparency and consistency of reporting would be welcome, as our report makes clear, other countries have raced far ahead of the UK on due diligence requirements to tackle modern slavery in supply chains. The Government’s response to our report promised to look at that. If the Minister is unable to update us today, can he agree to facilitate a meeting with the relevant Ministers so that members of our committee have the opportunity to make that case? Some 10 years since the introduction of the Modern Slavery Act, the Government have a golden opportunity to reclaim the UK’s title as a world leader in the battle against modern slavery. We owe it to the victims to seize that chance. I look forward to the further contributions to this debate and to the Minister’s response. I beg to move.

12:45

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as the chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation. I echo all the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, particularly about the committee, committee members, staff and those who gave evidence. I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, not just for her excellent speech, but because, although she came in to chair the committee at short notice, her expertise has been really well received. She is now committed to this cause, as all those who are new to the subject committee will be.

Yesterday, there was a debate in the other place to mark the exact date 10 years ago that the Modern Slavery Act was passed. Favourable comments were made about the now noble Baroness, Lady May, and Dame Karen Bradley MP, who was the Minister taking it through. I am delighted to see in his place behind me my noble friend Lord Bates, who was the Minister who took the Modern Slavery Act through the House of Lords.

Some 10 years since the passing of the Modern Slavery Act, I have somewhat conflicted emotions. I am immensely proud of what we achieved in that landmark legislation, yet I am deeply frustrated that still, despite a decade of progress, the scourge of modern slavery still persists and our work in combating it is far from complete. The problem is that we find more and more examples of modern slavery all the time, and therefore we have more and more work to do.

The Committee came up with some very important conclusions. One of the things that struck me—I knew this before, but I was pleased to see it echoed—was how modern slavery, as an issue, has slipped down the political agenda—particularly, as was just mentioned, by the conflation between illegal migration and human trafficking. I was very frustrated with some of the legislation that was put through which did not endear me to my Whips—perhaps it should be the other way; I did not find myself endeared to them.

In many ways, modern slavery makes us all complicit in it—how many of us can say with absolute certainty that the clothes we wear, the food we eat and the electronics we use are entirely free from exploitation? That is deeply troubling to me as a citizen and a consumer, and it troubles many people.

Modern slavery intersects with every aspect of society. It may be a hidden crime. We do not need to look hard to see it to become apparent and visible in our everyday lives. Trying to eradicate slavery from the supply chains, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, said, may be difficult but it is an absolutely fundamental issue that we really have to grasp.

The Modern Slavery Act introduced measures to ensure companies of a certain size produced modern slavery statements, but sadly this is just not happening.

Modern slavery also intersects with many of the Government’s own missions. We know that exploitation in the construction industry is high, and I would encourage them that mitigating the risk should be a key consideration in the plan to build the 1.5 million new homes we have been promised. When it comes to much needed green energy, it cannot be built on the back of forced labour.

Sadly, the Government cannot say that they were not warned by this House, because only this week they had an opportunity to prevent exploitation in the new Great British Energy supply chain. As expertly put by the noble Lord, Lord Offord, blocking companies found to be using forced labour

“does not create unnecessary bureaucracy or hinder investment; it simply ensures that taxpayers’ money does not fund exploitation”.—[Official Report, 11/2/25; col. 1175.]

This needs to be our focus. Ensuring that we are not all made complicit in enabling this crime and allowing it to be business as usual is fundamental.

At this moment it is business as usual. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority has not been properly resourced to proactively investigate and enforce proper labour practices. If, as we have heard, the proposed fair work agency faces the same levels of underresourcing, we are simply repackaging the problem. Proper investment and a clear plan on how it will operate are needed.

If we say that there will be consequences for forced labour, let us mean it. I point out to Ministers that the Government are fining hand car washes for non-registered workers, and yet only 5% of those fines are being collected—money that I think the Government not only need but could use for these resources.

We currently live in a society where victims of modern slavery are growing our food, caring for the elderly, propping up society and creating two tiers: people who are being exploited and people who benefit from this exploitation. I do not think anyone in this Chamber wants to be on either side of the coin.

Minister Jess Phillips, who spoke yesterday in the other place, is a real champion of fighting this scourge and has made a real difference. We will achieve this only if we have cross-party support and go forward to try to eradicate this, and get back to our position as a world leader.

12:51

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest: my family depends on care workers who come from a CQC-registered provider. Part of what I say today is based on reflections from sitting and listening to some of the conversations of those remarkable people who have come around the world to do jobs that are extraordinarily difficult and very necessary to us here.

Yesterday, I and the clerk to our committee had the great privilege of speaking to representatives of the Lao parliament about the process of post-legislative scrutiny. We talked about this Act and the work that we did, and we were asked, “What was the most important lesson that you learned?”. I said it is important to have a mix of people who know the subject inside out—I include in that our committee people, such as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee—together with people who know very little and are capable of asking the obvious questions; that is me.

We will hear in great detail from various people from around the committee on the nature of this problem and what the Government have to do about it. But the key question that we are debating is: is it government policy that ending modern slavery is seen as an integral factor in the development of sustainable business, or is it a luxury that would be very nice to have but actually does not matter? It was quite clear to us that under the preceding Conservative Governments it had gone from being one to the other. My suggestion is that it is neither. I suggest that all the things that we are going to recommend today that the Government do as the result of our report add up to good and sustainable business practice.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, talked about the care sector, and obviously I want to focus on that. But during our deliberations, one particular case came up that shows the problems in stark contrast. There was a case of a trawler firm, TN Trawlers, based in Galloway in Scotland. For over a decade it had been bringing in people from all over the world to act as deck-hands, and they were kept in the most appalling and dangerous circumstances with absolutely no possibility of contacting anybody at all. That threw up three issues for me. First, this is not just a domestic issue for us but an offshore issue; that is something that we did not get a chance to focus on in our committee but is very important. Secondly, the Government have not yet tackled the role that the directors of the company and phoenix companies have in the perpetuation of bad practice. Thirdly, the loopholes and the lack of information between different agencies—the police, the gangmasters authority and others—are ongoing.

We now have a growing body of evidence. In the care sector, for example, we have seen the problems grow over the last few years. It is very strange to me that we cannot get to the bottom of the problem. Our care sector is very well studied. People such as private equity investors do not put their money into a sector in the scale that they have without knowing the detailed financials, yet we could not get anybody to tell us who was paying for the care, which companies were bringing in workers and which were treating their workers badly. It is extraordinary to me that, as the noble Lord, Lord Randall, said, we are going to repeat the errors by setting up an agency that does not have the power to demand data of other public authorities or the requisite number of inspectors with deep knowledge of each of the sectors in which these abuses are happening, in order not only to deal with the cases that turn up but to do labour market projections and prevent matters arising. I see the problems of visas being tied to particular employers very clearly, and I think the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, is right that we should look at the Australian system as a way of preventing further abuses.

I go back to my starting point. I think that the role of government is to continue to make the business case against modern slavery. To do that, we really have to up our research game. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, like me, was very disappointed by the response of the Department for Business and Trade that we received when we took our evidence. I sincerely hope that by making the fair work agency the responsibility of that department and making explicit the continuing responsibility of other parts of government to feed into it, we will overcome that problem. If we do not, we are going to continue to trade on human misery, and that is not just immoral but financially unsustainable.

12:57

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the co-chair of the parliamentary group on modern slavery and vice-chairman, to the noble Lord, Lord Randall, of the Human Trafficking Foundation. I am so delighted that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, has held this debate, and I congratulate her on her splendid introductory speech. She was also an excellent chairman of our committee.

In the review of the working of the Act in 2019, chaired by Frank Field, then MP, we looked at how the Act was being or not being implemented, and we made 80 recommendations. Some of them were accepted by the then Government. None was implemented. The failure was largely due to the increasing concern over illegal immigration. Immigration, refugees and victims of human trafficking were conflated, as has already been said. Victims of exploitation were dealt with by the Immigration Minister. The tone of the previously excellent statutory guidance of the Home Office changed.

Subsequently, the Nationality and Borders Act was passed in 2022, the Illegal Migration Act in 2023 and the Rwanda Act in 2024. Much to the credit of this Government, the Rwanda Act will not be implemented. Sections 22 to 29 of the Illegal Migration Act on modern slavery have not yet come into force, and I very much hope they will be repealed. But the Nationality and Borders Act remains in force, and I want to deal with certain sections of it.

The Select Committee looked at the impact of Sections 61 to 68, I think. These limit the access that victims have to support, partly based on an entirely erroneous view of the previous Government—as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, said—that the NRM was a vehicle for abuse of the system by enabling illegal migrants to enter the UK. A large majority of final decisions remain positive and, as the noble Baroness said, our committee found no evidence that this actually happened—it is entirely anecdotal.

I remember asking in this House again and again of the then Minister: “Where is the evidence?” We were never given it. But what happened in the past was that it strongly influenced the rhetoric and attitude of government towards possible victims of exploitation. We said in the report:

“It should be recognised that there is a very real difference between migrants who come here willingly, and those who come because they are being trafficked as victims of modern slavery”.


My goodness me—everybody would think that was obvious. It did not seem to me that it was obvious to the last Government.

Section 58 of the 2022 Act requires victims to provide evidence within a given time, which our witnesses pointed out was very difficult for those without representation. Section 61 decreases the recovery period. Section 63 provides that the protection from removal from the United Kingdom does not apply if an alleged victim

“is a threat to public order”—

that is to say, has committed a crime. Earlier statutory guidance from the Home Office recognised that victims were forced into committing crime by their traffickers, such as young Vietnamese men tending cannabis plants in rented property, who were locked in. None the less, they would be deported because they were a threat to public order.

In 2023, there were 331 confirmed disqualifications on the grounds of public order. We found that Section 63 was being applied beyond the statutory guidance and there are serious risks of retrafficking. The Home Office requires reasonable grounds to be supported by objective factors. Despite earlier guidance recognising victims’ trauma and the difficulties in giving an accurate account, time from referral to a reasonable grounds decision is now taking much longer. There are issues on legal aid to fight public law decisions. The committee recommended that the Government should remove the requirements in Section 58(2) for evidence to be provided before a specified date and the requirement for objective evidence, and should improve their guidance and give more protection to victims from removal. I ask the Government seriously to consider repealing all the sections of the 2022 Act that relate to modern slavery.

The other thing is on modern slavery orders. There are three orders: reparation, prevention and risk. None is being properly used. The data is inadequate. There does not seem to be sufficient training or understanding of how to deal with it. There is also a freezing order in the civil law. If someone is about to be arrested as a perpetrator, it would be wise to give a civil order first in order to catch the assets—or, the moment the person is arrested, he will remove the money from the country using his phone. The prevention and risk orders are extremely valuable and should be used. The national referral mechanism urgently needs a review to deal with unacceptable delays in the short term and a real shake-up in the long term. There is much else I would like to say, but these are the major things I ask the Government to consider.

13:03

[The Lord Bishop of Bristol]

My Lords, I, too, speak as a member of the review committee on the Modern Slavery Act in this 10th anniversary week. It was world-leading legislation, as we have heard. I also rise in the week that the Church commemorates Harriet Monsell, founder of the Anglican Community of St John Baptist, Clewer, a community which, from its 19th century inception, had as a core vocation the care of female victims of human trafficking. That community has for several years funded training of community groups across the United Kingdom to notice the trafficked people—women, men and children—hiding in plain sight in their midst and to act on their behalf. Clewer has also produced apps, notably for car washes and nail bars, giving assurance on their labour practices and suppliers. In today’s debate, that is where I would like to focus my remarks.

I draw attention to Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act, which imposes a duty on companies supplying goods or services that have a turnover of at least £36 million to

“prepare a slavery and human trafficking statement”

every financial year. The statement should set out the steps that the business is taking to address and prevent the rise of modern slavery in its operations and supply chains. I know that some take that commitment very seriously.

I was happy to meet with one such company recently, Primark, which undertakes thorough and regular independent audits of its factories, employing experts who speak the local language and, in turn, talk to the local workforce so that they know what is going on on the ground. Once they find that the situation has materially changed, they pull out of the market. For example, in 2019, Primark found that it could no longer conduct effective human rights due diligence in Xinjiang province in China, so it prohibited all suppliers from using and sourcing products, materials, components or labour originating from the region. Primark has taken equally decisive action when UK suppliers have been found to be non-compliant.

Our report included recommendations on strengthening statutory guidance in Section 54 and the introduction of sanctions for non-compliance, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, indicated. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister on progress in this area.

The issue of modern slavery and exploitation in supply chains raises questions about corporate accountability. Although consumer businesses are exposed to a greater level of transparency and accountability, their lesser-known competitors can get away with publishing weak statements or not publishing at all, in the knowledge that any penalties are unlikely to be forthcoming. I know that many businesses, including the British Retail Consortium, John Lewis, Tesco and others, are asking for further regulation so that companies that operate supply chains free from forced labour are not left at a financial disadvantage.

A change in the law would chime with the public, as polling shows that four in five people want a new law to prevent exploitative practices. The law must in future hold UK companies accountable by establishing a central registry of statements similar to the gender pay gap register, and enforce the Modern Slavery Act by imposing financial penalties where companies fail to publish a statement and provide swift access to justice for victims.

Public sector organisations are also vulnerable to modern slavery risks in their supply chains and they lack the resources and legal power to address potential labour exploitation threats. Currently, public sector organisations, as we know, are driven by the need to drive down costs and find savings wherever they can, but it is vital that individuals are not endangered through their association with such risks. The Government’s modern slavery assessment tool indicates that 21% of suppliers were identified as high-risk, and that surgical instruments, gloves, gowns, uniforms and masks—PPE—were identified as the five highest-risk products. A possible reform to procurement processes could be the introduction of clauses into public tender legislation, mandating explicit disclosures about modern slavery risks. These clauses would require suppliers to demonstrate due diligence and reaffirm their commitment to preventing modern slavery.

The Modern Slavery Act was truly ground-breaking when it was introduced, but it must keep pace with changes to business practices by recognising the increasing complexities of supply chains. There are exemplary practices, as I have indicated, but these need regulatory support and a corporate environment where best practice is actively encouraged. Incentivising businesses would create a competitive and regulatory environment where companies would race to the top rather than to the bottom. The law as it stands discourages businesses from doing anything but the bare minimum and leaves the UK’s record on human trafficking, once so powerfully pioneering, now profoundly blemished.

13:10

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol. The Church has been an essential voice in the campaign to end modern slavery, and many of us will remember the significant role played by the former Bishop of Derby, Alastair Redfern, during the legislation’s passage through this House. I begin by joining with others in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, all the members of her committee and the clerks and advisers for an excellent and timely report.

As the Minister who had the privilege of steering this legislation through your Lordships’ House, I felt a shared pride with many others when it eventually arrived on the statute book. I say shared, because it was a cross-party measure brought in by a coalition Government—you cannot get more shared than that. That was, and remains, its strength. It could not have happened, however, and as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, has generously said, without the determination and reforming zeal of my noble friend Lady May of Maidenhead as Home Secretary, nor without Frank Field—Lord Field—who first challenged us to “call a spade a spade” and refer to human trafficking as modern slavery. He chaired both the pre and post-legislative scrutiny, ably supported by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and my noble friend Lord Randall. We should also acknowledge the role played by many civil society organisations, such as the Centre for Social Justice and Justice and Care, and the dedicated civil servants who translated the poetry of our hopes into the careful prose of legislation.

The task of tackling modern slavery cannot be achieved by one department, one party or one country. The crime of modern slavery is not something that occurs only in the United Kingdom. The 2022 report by the ILO and the International Organization for Migration estimated that there are 50 million people in situations of modern slavery around the world. It is a global problem, and solutions need to be global too. We can no more work alone to tackle human trafficking than we can to tackle climate change or pandemics. Just as the problems are cross-departmental and cross-border, so solutions must be found through cross-departmental and cross-border working. The highly organised criminal gangs who are conducting this evil trade in human misery and suffering are no respecters of borders. We therefore need to co-operate internationally if we are to combat them.

It is worth reminding ourselves that the initiative for the legislation on modern slavery came through the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, known as the Palermo Protocol, which came into force in 2003. This then led to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings in 2008, which now covers 46 countries. We may have left the European Union but, mercifully, we are still part of its predecessor, the Council of Europe. The fourth UK evaluation report by the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Trafficking in Human Beings is currently under way. Can the Minister say what part this report has played in that evaluation process? How can we learn from the process and the evaluations undertaken in the other 45 countries? Whose responsibility will that be?

Paragraph 203 of the report deals with the need to clarify responsibility for enforcement and how this is divided between departments. On page 25 of the Government’s response, they point to the specific co-ordinating role of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. If you do not have clarity of responsibility, you cannot have clarity of accountability. Let me test that, in a couple of respects. In 2023, the Government appointed the highly experienced diplomat Justin Bedford as the UK’s migration and modern slavery envoy, but he left his post in 2025. This would seem to be an important co-ordinating role, but I cannot see who has replaced him. Can the Minister provide an update for us on that appointment?

Secondly, having served as a Minister in the Home Office and as a Minister for International Development, I know of the vital role that UK overseas aid played in tackling some of the pressures on human trafficking at source. In 2020, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact estimated that the UK aid budget allocated explicitly to tackling modern slavery was £200 million over an unspecified period. This is a relatively small sum compared with the estimated economic costs of modern slavery to the UK taxpayer, which in 2018 the Home Office estimated as between £3.3 billion and £4.3 billion annually.

However, on the development tracker on GOV.UK, I note that the “Supporting Global Action to End Modern Slavery” programme had a budget of £12.85 million and ended in 2021. The successor programme, which started in 2024 and runs until 2030, has a budget of just £1,128,500—10% of the previous programme. The aid budget has been cut overall by 40% but the modern slavery programme has been cut by 90%. Is that correct? What is the current aid budget directed to tackling modern slavery? How is this projected to change over the next few years? In government, as everywhere else, results are driven not by rhetoric but by the efficient allocation of resources and resolve. I do not doubt the Government’s resolve, but I seek reassurance on adequate resources.

13:16

[Baroness Goudie (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my friend the noble Lord, Lord Bates. We worked together in the coalition Government on the question of human trafficking and on ensuring that we got the UN convention on human trafficking agreed. That took a while to get done, because of the election and so on, but we managed it. I declare an interest as a member of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, of Vital Voices and of the Global Women Asia network, the director of which, Wenchi Yu, was the first person to bring the question of human trafficking across my eyes and desk in 1976. Since then, I have been very interested in working globally, and here in this country, including previously with the noble Lord, Lord Bates.

I welcome this report. The UK made history 10 years ago by passing the Modern Slavery Act, a ground-breaking law designed to expose exploitation, prosecute perpetrators and protect victims. It was a beacon of leadership in the global fight against modern slavery. However, in 2025 we must ask ourselves: has it delivered on its promise? I know that the noble Baroness, Lady May, is also working on a report to see where we are, here and globally, for which I am grateful.

The Act brought modern slavery out of the shadows. It equipped law enforcement with greater powers, created the anti-slavery commissioner and mandated businesses to report on supply chains. Since its passage, we have seen progress, with 466 prosecutions in 2021, 405 in 2022 and over 3,500 live investigations in late 2022—a stark rise from 188 in 2016. Victim identification has surged, with 12,727 cases referred in 2021.

This is a global crime which is well-connected around the world, as my friend the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, has said. Yet, despite these strides, we remain far from eradicating this crime. Conservative estimates suggest that between 10,000 and 130,000 people in the UK are trapped in modern slavery, yet our prosecution rates barely scratch the surface, hovering around 2%. The national referral mechanism, designed to support victims, is overwhelmed, leaving survivors in limbo for months or even years. Worse still, recent immigration legislation such as the Illegal Migration Act 2023 has created tensions, with the potential to deter victims from seeking help due to deportation fears.

Modern slavery is not static. Criminal networks have evolved, infiltrating global supply chains, the gig economy and care sectors. County lines gangs exploit vulnerable children. Digital trafficking is growing. Yet the UK’s modern slavery strategy has remained largely unchanged since 2014. Other nations have moved ahead. As others have mentioned, Australia’s Modern Slavery Act 2018 and the EU’s corporate sustainability due diligence directive impose tougher requirements, demanding businesses actively prevent forced labour rather than just report it.

We also ought to look at companies reporting not only on the gender pay gap and ethnicity but now on how their supply chains are delivered. This is getting more important as we are not making very much and are importing almost everything, particularly in the garment trade, which is huge. As we have seen, everything that comes in—not only in this country— is from somewhere in Asia or further afield in countries that we do not even remember because they are in the fourth division of the world’s countries. Those countries are now doing this.

Despite over 16,000 UK businesses filing statements by 2024, compliance remains inconsistent, as I mentioned. Crucially, there are no penalties for failing the Act. Without mandatory due diligence, transparency becomes a hollow exercise rather than a tool of real change.

For the UK to reclaim its position as a world leader in tackling modern-day slavery, as we were, we must act decisively. First, we must strengthen victim protections by addressing delays in the national referral mechanism, ensuring that survivors receive immediate legal representation, safe housing and psychological support. Immigration policies must be reformed to protect victims, rather than penalise them.

Secondly, corporate accountability must be reinforced through mandatory due diligence laws and strict penalties for non-compliance, aligning with global best practice. Businesses must be required to take protective measures, not just report risks.

Thirdly, enforcement must be bolstered by making sure that crime does not pay, increasing asset seizures from traffickers, increasing prosecution and modernising legislation to combat emerging threats like digital exploitation.

Finally, the Modern Slavery Act must be updated to reflect current realities. The Government’s Employment Rights Bill is a step forward, but comprehensive reform is necessary to ensure that the law keeps pace with evolving criminal tactics and economic vulnerabilities.

The Modern Slavery Act was a promise to victims and the world. A decade on, let us not merely commemorate its passage but demand its transformation. We must rise to the challenge and ensure that, in the United Kingdom in 2025, no one lives in chains.

13:22

[Lord Smith of Hindhead (Con)]

My Lords, I start by mentioning how sad I was that Baroness Henig, who was due to chair this committee, was sadly unable to take on this role due to ill health, and in fact passed away as our deliberations began. Ruth was a very intelligent and kind lady whom I had the privilege to serve alongside on other committees of special inquiry.

I also say, however, how fortunate we were that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, took on this role. Despite having been in your Lordships’ House for only a short time, she was, in my view, an excellent chair whose past experience was evident in her careful and considerate handling of an important and timely review of the Modern Slavery Act. I of course add my thanks to our clerk and the wider team for their professionalism in dealing with the committee’s work.

The task of post-legislative review is never straightforward, and it is even less so when the subject matter is complex—and there is no doubt that modern slavery is a complex subject with a great many overlapping factors. We certainly saw that when hearing evidence and cross-examining witnesses.

In the short time we all have to speak today, it is possible to pick out only a couple of topics from our report, and I will therefore focus on the following. During our deliberations, we heard from a huge number of NGOs, academics, experts and people who had spent often years or decades studying or working in the area of modern slavery. But the word “prevention” was rarely spoken and, until our eighth meeting, I think it had been said only twice. There seemed at times to be a lack of understanding between cause and effect. The last statistic produced by government, back in 2017, estimated that modern slavery cost the UK economy between £3.3 billion and £4.3 billion each year, which is about as broad-brush as one could get.

Yet, despite these costs, despite people being able to have a career in the industry of NGOs looking after the victims of modern slavery, and despite all the difficulties that we as a committee saw evidence of, the current prosecution rate of people who are behind all this misery, human tragedy and suffering is 1.8% of all cases brought to the attention of the police and courts.

I understand that there are many contributing factors for this low figure, and indeed we were assured that since hidden crimes, such as domestic abuse and sexual offences, sat at a similar prosecution rate of between 1% and 3% it was not apparently as low as it seemed. The figure nevertheless struck me and other members of the committee as being painfully inadequate. Will the Minister update the House on what measures are being considered to increase this prosecution rate and whether there are any plans significantly to increase prison sentences for those who are prosecuted as a deterrent to what is viewed by many in the criminal fraternity as being a high-profit, low-risk crime? Can the Minister provide an updated figure from the one available from eight years ago on how much the effects of modern slavery are costing the UK economy today?

The second point I would like to raise is that during our findings I was somewhat dismissive of certain areas and topics being examined which, in my view, constituted bad employment practices rather than modern slavery. I felt at times that we were being taken off course, but I have changed my mind. That is one of the great things about your Lordships’ House: we have the freedom and are entitled to change our views. I now accept that certain employment practices may provide a culture in which modern slavery can exist.

My view changed following the publication of a news article in September last year, subsequent to the publication of our report, which was briefly referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, concerning modern slavery victims, all from the Czech Republic, who were forced for years to work at both a McDonald’s branch in Cambridgeshire and a company supplying bread products to major supermarkets. The criminal gang in question forced 16 victims to work at either the fast food restaurant or the factory that supplied Asda, the Co-op, M&S, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.

I cannot comment on the bakery company, as I have no knowledge of it, but McDonald’s is an excellent employer with a happy, long-standing workforce, but well-established warning signs of slavery, including paying the wages of four men into one bank account, were missed over many years. On several occasions, some of the victims escaped and fled home, only to be tracked down and trafficked back to the UK. Now, while I am delighted that this exploitation ended after the victims contacted the police in the Czech Republic who then tipped off their British counterparts, how could so many red flags have been missed, allowing this exploitation to continue for so many years with the criminal gang making hundreds of thousands of pounds?

Will the Minister comment on whether there are any plans to initiate further collaborations with police forces from other countries to help solve this international problem and on whether the Government should provide advice to employers about red flags that indicate that modern slavery may be operating? Perhaps banks should be encouraged to be vigilant in cases where wages are being paid into a single account.

I end by saying that it was a privilege to serve on this committee of special inquiry, and I sincerely hope that our work and recommendations to the Government may in some way help to break the invisible chains of modern slavery.

13:28

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, it was a privilege to serve with colleagues under my noble friend Lady O’Grady, and the committee was brilliantly supported by our clerk Sabrina Asghar and her team. With the introduction of the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and the Illegal Migration Act 2023, the previous Government deliberately conflated modern slavery and human trafficking with people smuggling and irregular migration and removed protections for survivors of modern slavery, making it harder to prosecute perpetrators and for survivors to receive support. I am glad to say that the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will repeal much of the Illegal Migration Act, including those sections that cover modern slavery. However, public order disqualifications will remain in place, and I hope that my noble friend, whom I am very pleased to welcome to his inaugural debate as a Front-Bencher, will say when they will be rescinded.

I want to concentrate on two main aspects of our report, both of which have been covered already by other noble Lords—I would say, unsurprisingly. The first concerns the care sector. Some 57% of all skilled worker visas issued in 2022-23 were health and care visas. This is a vital sector of the economy, but it is straining at the seams, with around 130,000 vacancies at the moment. That, sadly, has led to abuse by some care providers in their attempts to fill the gaps with care workers from overseas.

I am pleased that the Government have this month introduced regulations that will require care providers which hold a licence to sponsor foreign workers to first try to recruit from a local pool of migrant care workers who seek employment due to no longer having sponsorship because their sponsors have been unable to offer sufficient work and/or have lost their sponsor licences. This has to happen before employers can sponsor any new recruits from other immigration routes or overseas. Workers in the pool may have undergone exploitation, including modern slavery, and may be living in adverse circumstances, including homelessness, and in some cases, destitution. That change is very much a positive step, and it will be important to monitor the effect that it has over the next year.

The Employment Rights Bill will introduce the fair work agency, which will absorb the statutory duties of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, including its duty to identify and refer potential victims of modern slavery. That will be an overdue tightening of employment practices in the sector.

I also want to highlight issues in supply chains where due diligence of employers is required. I have to say to my noble friend that this is a part of our report to which the Government’s response was disappointing. The committee called for publication of statements on the modern slavery register to be mandatory. I would have thought that this was a straightforward request, but the Government’s response speaks only of the voluntary uploading of statements. That approach has been shown to be insufficient. There needs to be enforcement, otherwise nothing will change in a meaningful sense. If the Government are serious about ethical supply chains—and I certainly do not doubt that—they need to show that to those companies that do not see it as a priority.

Our committee recommended that the Government introduce proportionate sanctions for organisations that fail to comply with supply chain requirements. In response, the Government said that they are “reviewing” how they can

“strengthen penalties for non-compliance and create a proportionate enforcement regime”,

and

“will set out … steps more broadly”—

in normal parlance—“in due course”.

That was three months ago. Can my noble friend say whether there has been any progress? The current reliance on the Home Secretary seeking an injunction to require compliance simply is not adequate in this situation.

In her excellent opening speech, my noble friend Lady O’Grady called on the Government to direct the Department for Business and Trade to act on supply chains. I have to say that the committee was treated very poorly by the department, which for several weeks refused to send anyone to give evidence to us. It occurs to me that the department’s officials may well be responsible for urging caution on the Government regarding sanctions. If so, I very much hope my noble friend and other Ministers will resist it.

I welcome that the Home Office is currently working with business, academia and civil society to update the Section 54 statutory guidance in this space. That will improve the quality of the statements, but they remain voluntary, and the committee believes that this is not enough. I accept that it is difficult to set up ethical supply chains, but more and more companies now understand the issues and what needs to be done.

Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol, I met Primark—not with the right reverend Prelate—and I found that it was an excellent example of what can be achieved with the right approach. That company has been taking action on supply chains for 20 years and now has 130 people in its ethics and sustainability team. It pays for all its own audits, which ensures that they are independent. Those audits are carried out before appointing a supplier, not after, although of course they update constantly. Primark’s emphasis on using local partners to build its capacity in the country of origin with the aim of leaving a legacy to ensure that standards are maintained is a model that many more companies could and should follow, but I come back to the point that without some form of sanction, there is no reason to believe that those who do not currently do so will change.

As my noble friend Lady O’Grady said, great credit is due to the noble Baroness, Lady May of Maidenhead, for her pioneering work in this area. As Home Secretary, she was primarily responsible for the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Despite being—shall we say—somewhat distracted by other events when she became Prime Minister, she has never lost focus. She once called modern slavery

“the great human rights issue of our time”,

so it is no surprise to learn that she has set up a foundation through which to continue her campaigning. That is undoubtedly necessary, as there are now 122,000 people estimated to be living in modern slavery in the UK. Ten years on from the Act, there is still much to do, and our report sets out many useful steps to be taken on that journey.

13:35

[Lord Kempsell (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord and all my fellow committee members in this debate. I add my thanks to all of them and to everyone involved with this post-legislative scrutiny work. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, for her work chairing this committee. On the Conservative side, we now know that we need trade unionists to chair committees really effectively.

This was a committee which had to examine some very difficult and troubling material. It had to deal with some issues in immigration policy which are very divisive. All the way through the committee’s deliberations, it was carried out in the best spirit of your Lordships’ House, so thank you. Before I go any further, I also put my thanks on record to the staff and our expert adviser, whom I am not sure we have yet mentioned, and for all the help the House provided in putting together our report.

I would also like to record just how affecting and moving I found much of the evidence to be. We have heard of so many ways to think about modern slavery; it is a complex topic. Perhaps one very straightforward way to think about it is through the prism that it is a crime. It is a crime which is having a terrible impact on some of the most vulnerable people in the United Kingdom and in communities more widely.

I want to highlight some of the findings of the evidence in our report about the links between modern slavery and other forms of offending, including the running of county lines drugs gangs, which previous Administrations tried very hard in various iterations to tackle. The impact of modern slavery runs far beyond its immediate victims into the economy, into standards in employment, into healthcare and into many sectors. That is why we must do everything we can to redouble our efforts to eradicate this crime.

That leads us to the difficult question: how? Even as this post-legislative scrutiny exercise found, legislation alone is never the full picture; enforcement is key. Our committee heard repeated evidence about a lack of resources, a lack of focus and uncertainty about best practices and priorities in the enforcement architecture. I have to say—perhaps I am not alone among noble Lords—that I found the overlapping domains of different agencies quite confusing. Perhaps it is a prime example of the incoherence of some of the modern British state. Despite the great minds that we had assembled on the committee, I found it difficult to keep track of just which enforcement agency was responsible precisely for what. In the design of the Government’s new enforcement architecture, it will be important to keep in mind the findings of this committee that those overlapping and unclear areas of aegis and remit can slow down and impact enforcement.

On the brighter spots in the enforcement landscape, I was delighted to read recently that in my home county of Hertfordshire police are now using slavery and trafficking prevention orders to tackle gangs which exploit children to distribute drugs. There are powerful civil orders in this Act, as the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, referred to. These orders can be used to ban foreign travel, ban criminals working with young people and place restrictions on them contacting vulnerable individuals. They are also being well deployed by Essex Police, one of the first forces in the country to deploy the slavery and trafficking risk order. That is why I was pleased to read in the Government’s response to our committee report that the further deployment and more effective use of those orders is a priority for the Government.



Given my noble friend Lord Smith’s reference to the low prosecution rate of just 1.8%, it is no wonder that people are asking whether the measures available to law enforcement under the Act are being used to their full potential. That statistic brings me to another area of concern I had when I was working on the committee: data or the lack of it. I was particularly struck by the evidence of Sir Bernard Silverman, the former Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office, who pointed out that there are many different ways of measuring these crimes, but none is inherently reliable because they all have assumptions built into them and various drawbacks. Modern slavery is a hidden crime in many ways; you cannot measure it as you would other offences. Therefore, I urge your Lordships’ House to consider the recommendations we make about data and improving the Government’s understanding of that field.

I realise that I may very well be in the minority in saying this, but I would use the same caution when coming to a fixed view about whether the modern slavery architecture is open to abuse by bad actors, who themselves are not victims of modern slavery but are trying to exploit the asylum system. That claim cannot be immediately dismissed out of hand; we simply do not have the necessary evidence. That is why I am pleased that the committee concluded in its report:

“The Government should develop a sound evidence base to inform policy … Data should be sought as to whether and, if so, in what respects and by whom the modern slavery system is being abused”.


Importantly, it says that that data should be published, rather than just being held by the Government.

Overall, after engaging in the work of the committee, I have concluded that, at the heart of fighting modern slavery, we need tougher policing and a more effective immigration system. With that in place, we would be better equipped and in a better position to crack down on this crime. I know that, across your Lordships’ House, there is a consensus that we must do all we can to fix that.

13:41

[Lord Whitty (Lab)]

My Lords, I too served on the committee, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, for her chairmanship and her introduction. I thank all members of the committee who have spoken today—and stolen all my lines—because they have done a great job in pointing out both the analysis of the problem and the reasons why it has failed.

I have abandoned most of my speech, so instead I will address the question raised, by implication, by the noble Lord, Lord Smith: why are people not taking this more seriously? The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, and I come from a tradition where many of our comrades have always said, “All employers are exploitative, so what is the problem?” I am afraid that that is the attitude of quite a lot of the public, both as commentators and as consumers.

The definition of modern slavery is absolute control. The hold that the alleged employers—the gangmasters—that exist in this area have over the people they exploit is intense. They probably hold their passports and their work records, and they provide accommodation; in some cases, they have the ability to terrorise the families of those who were trafficked here, back in the nations which they came from.

We must remember that quite a lot of the victims of modern slavery were not trafficked here. At least 25% of the identified victims are of UK origin. Some 28% are children, who are probably here legitimately, and others will be here legitimately, at least in the short term, because they came here on legitimate short-term visas. This is not a problem that stems primarily from immigration.

One of the problems for the institutions involved in this area is that the Home Office—which was keen to address this under the now noble Baroness, Lady May—got overwhelmed with the issue of immigration and regarded the powers and responsibilities that it is supposed to undertake under the Modern Slavery Act as another means of getting at alleged illegal immigrants. That is unfortunate, though probably inevitable; in my view, it is a good reason for not allowing the Home Office to be the main protagonist hereafter in trying to eradicate modern slavery. The Home Office’s business and focus are inevitably elsewhere.

The department that ought to be responsible—the Department for Business and Trade—proved elusive when trying to get any information from it. At one stage, it declined to provide evidence or Ministers to speak to the committee. That department, and the institutions run by it, must be the way of systematically stopping people in this country being employed on terms that are equivalent to modern slavery.

One of the difficulties is that people do not know what we mean. The public do not encounter this in any meaningful way, either because it is criminal, and provides only services such as prostitution, drug running or cannabis farms—which most people do not come across—or because it is short-term labour in places that most of the public do not visit, such as farms and construction sites. I dealt with this issue when I was Agriculture Minister, trying to get some control over the gangmasters who provide temporary labour to farmers—we succeeded in that, to a degree. Where this is totally hidden is in the area of domestic service. Many of the cases that have been successfully brought were in that area, but there are hundreds and thousands of cases that are never touched and never known about.

There are places where the general public come into contact with the final result of modern slavery, such as nail bars, McDonald’s, as has been said, and car washes. They have no idea that the people they deal with are held there under terms which amount to modern slavery. Public education must be part of this.

There is a lack of proper public appreciation that there is a big and costly problem—one which undermines the legitimacy of lots of sectors and employment conditions more generally. It is partly a failure of the institutions stemming from the Home Office, and the fact that the enforcement agencies do not appear to co-operate with one another. I am hopeful that, under the Employment Rights Bill, which we discussed yesterday, the fair work agency will perhaps do some of this. I am yet to be convinced that it will have the powers or the resources to do so. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister—whose department I want to take this away from—that the relevant department and the priorities of Government will ensure that there are resources in this area.

We need to raise public consciousness and the priority within government, and deliver the institution for regulation and enforcement that the Government have so far failed to do so. If we can both of those things, we can begin the very heavy task of eradicating modern slavery.

13:48

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, for presenting this important report for debate.

Some 10 years ago, the UK led the world in tackling modern slavery. In 2012, I introduced the first anti-slavery and anti-trafficking Bill into the House of Lords, and, with the co-operation of everyone, we got it through. But it got stuck in the Commons, as usual, so I sent it to Prime Minister Cameron, who got his Home Secretary, now the noble Baroness, Lady May, to form a committee to design a more comprehensive Bill. I was privileged to sit on that committee, and it became the Modern Slavery Act—a landmark piece of legislation worldwide.

But 10 years later, our leadership has weakened. Policy changes have made things worse. Victim support, the national referral mechanism—the NRM—and immigration policies have all changed, and these changes have left victims in greater danger. I welcome this timely report as we plan the next decade of action.

For many, modern slavery seems rather distant: it does not seem to affect daily life, they think. But, as has already been mentioned, slavery is involved in the manufacture of our clothes, in washing cars and in serving food. We ought also to understand that the UK Government are buying Chinese solar panels made by victims of modern slavery. Does the Minister not agree that this should stop forthwith?

Victims feel trapped; without support, there is no escape. One major issue is the tightening of the NRM criteria. This has drastically reduced the number of victims receiving support. In 2022, as we mentioned already, 89% of cases received a positive reasonable grounds decision, but by 2024 this figure fell to just 53% and, worse still, 35% of all cases are now rejected because of “insufficient information”. This was once rare but now accounts for over half the negative decisions. The committee’s report makes this clear. It states:

“The requirement for objective evidence to make a reasonable grounds decision has deprived many of support they would previously have been entitled to”.


Even for those who qualify, support lasts only for the recovery period. This period is now technically only 30 days, which is far too short for victims recovering from severe trauma. Many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and disorientation. They have faced rape, violence and coercion. Recovery takes time. Many victims also wait a long time for a conclusive grounds decision, but, when they finally receive it, support does not continue. Instead, it often stops. Many are left homeless, destitute and at risk of further trafficking. Without housing or long-term support, how can they rebuild their lives? How can they help to bring traffickers to justice?

Between 2017 and 2019, I proposed several Private Members’ Bills to extend support for victims after a conclusive grounds decision. Sadly, I was unsuccessful, but I am pleased that the committee has highlighted this issue. At this stage, I pay tribute to the marvellous Chief Whip on the Labour side in the House of Lords, Roy Kennedy—the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. He always supported me. In fact, he used to say, “The thing to do about these Private Members’ Bills is stop people putting down amendments. If you find anyone is putting down an amendment, just you tell me and I shall go and lean on him until he stops breathing”—he was a great help indeed.

Another concern is the way that modern slavery is treated as an immigration issue, as has been mentioned already. Victims are often seen as illegal immigrants first, and they are not recognised as people who are suffering extreme exploitation. This discourages reporting. Many victims, especially those trafficked from overseas, fear detention or deportation. Modern slavery is not about immigration: it is a serious human rights abuse issue. At the same time, modern slavery remains widespread in our economy. Investigations into major retailers have shown this. Charities and front-line organisations work tirelessly to support survivors, but they cannot do so alone. They need the Government to support them. This means safe housing, financial stability and long-term security. It means tackling modern slavery as a crime, not as part of immigration enforcement.

One initiative that works very well is the victim navigation scheme, run by Justice and Care. It has a 97% success rate in securing convictions for modern slavery cases, where it has also helped victims. I have advocated for this scheme before and I do so again. The Government must expand it nationwide.

The UK once led the world against modern slavery. We must do so again. Let us support this report and help the victims recover and rebuild their lives.

13:55

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare an interest as a trustee of Safer London, which supports young people at risk of exploitation.

Recently, a flat in my leafy London suburb was cleared out, with large, apparently industrial items being chucked out of an upstairs window. Later, I heard it had been a cannabis farm—to respond to what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said. This caused a small stir, but no one seemed to be curious or concerned about who had been working there. Then, a local councillor told me that she had dealt with three cases of cuckooing in rapid succession. It does happen here.

Slavery needs to be taken seriously and to be on everyone’s radar, including the radar of law enforcement and service providers. Anyone can come across it. The first issue is to recognise it, because victims, for a range of reasons, may not be able to speak. There are parallels with the response, or failure to respond, to domestic violence.

Is the Home Office, which is largely focused on law enforcement, the right department? Could it not focus more on support and recovery? Our committee and Members who have spoken today referred to the conflation of slavery and irregular migration, and the Home Office seems to be focused still on immigration numbers. Immigration trumps slavery, in practice.

The fair work agency is to be an executive agency of the Department for Business and Trade. I sought a word for what the committee was, and I have written down that it was “unconvinced” that this department understands the nuances. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, has spoken very firmly and clearly on this and on other issues, and my noble friend Lady Barker issued an important challenge to the department. I hope it keeps modern slavery in mind when it negotiates trade agreements, including with the US.

Members have spoken about the confusion between trafficking and smuggling, and about assertions, which have not been shown to be more than assertions, of widespread fraudulent claims. Enforcement of the criminal law is quite inadequate—it is painfully slow, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Smith.

All this and more indicates a need to reverse the rollbacks on modern slavery protection—protection that is required by human rights law and international obligations—and to revise legislation, and more than just the border security Bill. Like the noble and learned Baroness, I emphasise that there is a need to revise guidance that reflects the culture of disbelief. The language matters; it affects public attitudes. A “threat to public order”? Victims must be identified both for their own sake and for investigation, prosecution and conviction, although it is not actually necessary for a victim to co-operate for them to be entitled to protection.

I applaud the work of individuals and organisations in the third sector who deal with victims of exploitation that is often beyond imagining. I could talk about the need for training, including in hard-pressed local authorities, to help identify it, but I will just say that I am struck by the call for co-ordinators or SPOCs—single points of contact—in each authority. Authorities have not received new burdens funding to tackle slavery or to support victims. Above all, I applaud survivors who are prepared to speak. They are experts and their evidence is invaluable.

The issues are big, wide and deep. They were too big for a time-limited committee, and I am not doing justice to the committee’s work. It benefited particularly from the clear focus of our chair, the work of the staff and our adviser, and the evidence of our witnesses, including survivors.

We are hearing a lot this week that the world has moved on. In a different context it has, with new forms of exploitation being deployed—there is another debate to be had about whether new definitions are needed—and new cohorts of people being exploited. County lines is just one example, and care workers are being treated as agricultural workers have been for far too long. The RCN reports receiving more than 100 calls a week from nurses saying they are being mistreated. It is shaming if we cannot—or do not—protect the people we recruit to care for us. The rules may also badly let down clients who need care.

Some new forms of exploitation may come to light, and some may still fail to get attention; my noble friend Lady Barker mentioned the fishing industry. Some may change, and some may not. In 2015 we did not achieve nearly enough for overseas domestic workers, and care workers are now exploited in similar ways because of the restriction on switching sponsors, just as overseas domestic workers were and are.

All exploitation is about money, so the calls for upping skills to follow the money, using financial investigation officers, are important, as is making more use of the tools available, especially civil risk and prevention orders. I believe plans were announced two or three years ago to strengthen the legislation, perhaps to apply these orders to defendants on remand, but that has not happened. We had evidence that their use is patchy, with different police forces having variable awareness of them.

On people as well as tools, what is happening with independent child trafficking guardians? Victim navigators, who have just been mentioned, have been described as game-changers, providing information about what support is available—I had not thought about criminal injuries compensation. The support, such as housing, is not always available. Housing is more than a roof—it is safety and stability. Navigators embody what is essential: respect for survivors.

There are more structural issues. A concrete point about better cross-governmental working—the noble Lord, Lord Kempsell, referred to the confusing landscape —was made by the National Audit Office in its recent report on skilled worker visas. On data sharing between departments, the Home Office and HMRC are now sharing data on salaries and working hours but not enough to allow the Home Office to identify non-compliance. Robust data and independent research and evidence are essential. The noble Lord, Lord Bates, who always calls a spade a spade, talked importantly about responsibility and accountability.

Another suggestion is extending the list of non-statutory first responders for the purposes of referral to the national referral mechanism. They have a pretty good success rate with decisions, certainly better than statutory responders. It seems, though, that more training is needed for first responders in interview techniques, for instance. No one would deny that time in the NRM is, at best, time in limbo, with a real risk of retrafficking. We should not have the situation of large numbers of people identified as possible victims by statutory authorities then declining referral to the NRM; why?

Knowledge of the Section 45 statutory defence for victims who commit an offence seems inadequate. There is a lack of legal advice and expertise, which means guilty pleas when they should not have been entered. The offences within the section are limited; indeed, logically, all offences should come within it.

Inevitably, one omits so much in a debate such as this.

The Government—every Government—say in response to amendments to previous legislation, “We keep all legislation under review”. The Government say the same in their response to our report, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, in parts is really rather thin. There is no shortage of careful, well-researched thought and ideas, including from good employers, to bring us up to date in both legislation and practice.

On Wednesday I met some young people who, as children, had been trafficked. Their resilience and achievements were truly impressive. At a clinical, impersonal level, we waste people’s keenness to contribute—“contribute” is a word we often hear—and their experience of the processes is too often itself damaging. Of the process, one said, “I spent two years in my room waiting for a miracle”. Another, still waiting for a decision, said, “I am wasting years of my life”—in fact, it is almost a decade in his case—“waiting for just one decision”.

14:06

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning (Con)]

My Lords, this thought-provoking, challenging and important debate has more than adequately answered the rhetorical question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, of why this subject matters.

I begin by paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, for her introduction and chairmanship of this important committee, to all noble Lords who served on the committee, and of course to the staff who have worked so hard to support them.

The report that this House has received is comprehensive but sobering. It examines and evaluates very adequately how we have gone from world leading in this area to identifying significant gaps over a period of time, not least because of the changes in legislative architecture outlined by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. The report has also identified other areas that need to be examined, such as carers, on which the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, put specific emphasis.

The report highlights that the prosecution rate is far too low, which was echoed by the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, and my noble friends Lord Kempsell and Lord Smith. A prosecution rate of 1.81%, in the context of a prosecution rate for all crime in the UK of 7%, is clearly far too low. In saying that, it is important to remember that officers investigating these cases are faced with significant challenge. Around a third of people referred to the national referral mechanism in 2023 reported that they were exploited overseas, and it is naturally difficult to stay in contact with a large number of foreign national victims who return to the country they came from while investigations are ongoing. That underlines the important point that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, made about support for victims once they have made a complaint within the legal system.

However, while we acknowledge these challenges, it must be stressed that we on these Benches are very proud of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and proud of the leadership of my noble friends Lord McColl, Lady May of Maidenhead and Lord Bates. But we recognise entirely that it was built on a consensus across all political parties, and that this issue is not to be used as a political football.

The Act can work to protect people only when the threat of repercussions is effective. Criminals will be deterred only if they are made to feel that they are at a genuine risk of being prosecuted and punished for the actions they are perpetrating. It is incumbent upon the Government to make clear their next steps in making these legal threats credible. I therefore ask the Minister—I welcome him to the Front Bench for the first time—what his Government intend to do to support law enforcement bodies in their work to bring perpetrators of modern slavery to justice. What do they intend to do to recognise the confused landscape that my noble friend Lord Kempsell referred to for victims in coming forward and seeing justice done? How will the Government send a clear message that a credible threat exists to those who choose to profit from this practice?

Another point raised by the committee’s report was around Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act, which imposes a duty on UK-based businesses to make clear the action they have taken to ensure that their own businesses and, often even more importantly, their supply chains are free of modern slavery. This point was adequately raised today by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol. Unfortunately, not all companies are Primark and, therefore, vigilance needs to continue as we go through. This cannot be a mere box-ticking exercise.

This provision is an important part of the Act, which places a burden on companies to take a deep dive into their own supply chains, beyond their immediate operations, to make sure that they are not inadvertently playing a role in funding the organised criminals who force people into modern slavery. I know that I am joined by many others in your Lordships’ House when I express, as my noble friend Lord Randall said, dismay that the Government whipped Members in the other place against supporting an amendment passed in your Lordships’ House on the Great British Energy Bill that would have compelled the Government to cease financial assistance if

“there exists credible evidence of modern slavery in the energy supply chain of any company designated Great British Energy”.

The Government need to show leadership in working to uncover and tackle the scourge of modern slavery. I therefore ask the Minister: if the Government are not prepared to commit their own bodies to review and act against modern slavery, how can they demand that other companies take the same action? We cannot send out mixed messages to those who wish to avoid this legislation.

I am aware that the Government announced at the beginning of the year that they are in the process of considering how they can strengthen the Section 54 regime, including penalties for non-compliance. In matters such as this, sunshine is the best disinfectant, and ensuring that companies are compelled to report their figures means that customers, investors and civil society can review these crucial facts. We can therefore avoid consumers such as my noble friend Lord Randall being worried about their complicity—worried that they may be taking part—when they buy products and cannot be sure where they came from.

As we approach the end of this debate, I assure the Minister that, on this side, we want to do all we can to ensure the effectiveness of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, and we will be right behind him in making sure that victims are supported through prosecution, to ensure that this terrible practice is discontinued.

14:13

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Moraes) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, for the very constructive way in which he closed. I thank everyone who contributed to this debate. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lady O’Grady. To extend, perhaps, what the noble Lord, Lord Kempsell, said, if you want something done well, get a respected trade unionist to chair your Select Committee. I have worked with my noble friend, and it has been done very well. This is a serious report doing two serious things: recommitting this Government—any Government—to the fight against modern slavery and, more importantly, to improving that response. I very much welcome this report.

This has been a thorough and thoughtful debate. Although the issues are of the utmost gravity, it has been reassuring and instructive for me to have had this exposure to the wealth of experience and expertise that exists across the House. It is also, of course, a timely debate, given that it is taking place just after the 10th anniversary of the Modern Slavery Act becoming law. On that note, I pay particular tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady May, who, as the then Home Secretary, was instrumental in getting this ground-breaking piece of legislation on to the statute book.

The Government responded to the committee’s report in December, as the House knows, but that was very shortly after the current Government took office. Inevitably, I will repeat some of the points that were made in that response but, clearly, we are now in March and the Government’s policy is starting to take shape. There have been many criticisms of that approach but it is accurate to say that the Government are pursuing a positive path on action to deal with the issues under the Modern Slavery Act.

Why do I say that? We can see the energetic activities of our Safeguarding Minister, Jess Phillips, who now has that responsibility and portfolio—we saw that yesterday in the other place. We also see some practical improvements to the approach. That is why, in October, the Government committed to eliminating the backlog within two years by recruiting 200 more decision-makers—not a given, given the financial constraints that we are currently under. In a few short months, the Home Office has hired over 100 new staff. As of last month, the backlog is now half the size it was at its worst in 2022. Noble Lords have mentioned that NRM decisions went up. The Government are at least now getting those numbers down—that is important.

Of course, as the report rightly said, we also need long-term reform of the modern slavery system. The threat has clearly evolved over time since 2015, as a number of noble Lords have said. The crimes have also changed significantly since the 2015 Act was passed. The scale is now very large. I know that some existential points were made by my noble friend Lord Whitty, but it is true that we are now dealing with three massive categories: the exploited, who are legally resident and have leave to remain or are even British citizens, and are being exploited in work, sometimes very brutally; people who come through the immigration system to work in this country, perhaps not legally but we deal with them; and then the sheer scale of the issue of supply chains, which a number of noble Lords have mentioned during this debate and which is complex.

The Government have already introduced measures that will support such broad reform—they are steps, of course—which include a new standalone offence of child criminal exploitation in order to go after the gangs that are luring young people into violence and crime. We are also trying to get to the heart of the matter in the areas of work and the care sector, which noble Lords have mentioned. We are trying to address all the areas in the shadows where people are suffering.

We are establishing the fair work agency, about which I will say a little more later, through the Employment Rights Bill. It will ensure a more cohesive and streamlined response to exploitation. Further, this week, as noble Lords will know, the Home Office published a significant update to the transparency in supply chain statutory guidance. This will further support businesses to produce high-quality statements and, more importantly, take concrete action to comply with the letter and spirit of Section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act.

Clearly, further work is needed. That is what the Select Committee report was about. That is why the Government will soon be launching a public consultation on how we can improve the process of identifying victims of modern slavery and human trafficking. The Government will be working closely with survivors, first responders, law enforcement, prosecution services and devolved Administrations, among others. The Government will also provide details about this consultation in due course.

I turn now to the many detailed points made in the House today. First of all, the chair of the committee, my noble friend Lady O’Grady, raised the critical points. I begin with immigration legislation and what will be repealed. The Government understand that they have to take meaningful steps on this to decouple the issues of immigration and trafficking but also deal with the adverse effects of previous legislation.

The Government have, first, ensured that the portfolio for modern slavery is under the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, rather than the Ministers responsible for immigration, in recognition of the Government’s priorities in this space. I had thought I was answering for the Home Office. I had many invitations to answer for other departments, but I shall not take up any of them because, as I go on, noble Lords will see the complexity of departmental interest in this area. Public procurement, for example, concerns all the departments mentioned in the House this afternoon. However, we now have a Minister with a specific portfolio that is a legacy of the 2015 Act. It gives a branding and a kind of central point of focus for tackling modern slavery.

I will now answer my noble friend Lady O’Grady’s points specifically. The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill seeks to repeal the modern slavery provisions. I was going to say “will repeal the modern slavery provisions”, but it has not happened yet so let me not be sacked on my first outing as Minister. It seeks to repeal the modern slavery provisions linked to the duty to remove in the Illegal Migration Act 2023. This would ensure that there is no blanket ban on irregular migrants seeking modern slavery protections.

The sole modern slavery measure being retained from the Illegal Migration Act would, if commenced, allow more foreign national offenders to be considered for removal from modern slavery protections on the ground of public order—for example, serious criminality and threats to national security. However, the repeal of the 2023 Act is there.

As with all disqualifications, decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. As noble Lords know, many of these cases are complex and decisions consider the public order risk against the individual’s need for modern slavery-specific support. That would take account of convictions for offences and the possible exploitation of an individual to commit those offences.

On the immigration White Paper, the Government recognise, as my noble friend Lady O’Grady said, the value of legal migration and the contribution it makes to our country. Many of the exploited people we see are coming to do jobs that need to be done in the care and other sectors. Migration has always been an important part of our nation’s history, but the immigration system should still be properly controlled and managed. In the upcoming immigration White Paper, we will set out a comprehensive plan to restore order to our broken immigration system, linking immigration, skills and visa systems to grow our domestic workforce, end some reliance on overseas labour and boost economic growth. Where we have a reliance on overseas labour—the matter before us today—we will not exploit those people, and we will do everything we can to take action to stop this happening.

My noble friend Lord Whitty, the noble Lord, Lord Randall, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, and, importantly, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol—almost all noble Lords, I think—raised the issue of the care sector. To be clear, the care sector has become central because it is our current focus in where we see the exploitation. To answer the points made by noble Lords, the Government believe everyone deserves to be treated fairly at work and rewarded for their contribution to the economy.

The Government are deeply concerned about issues being raised in the adult care sector, including potential unethical employment practices by some sponsors of the health and care worker visa. The Home Office has zero tolerance for sponsors who seek to exploit workers and will take action against anyone found to be doing so. Noble Lords may ask what the evidence is of that. The Home Office now revokes sponsors’ licences if they fail to meet their obligations, so the evidence is that that is happening. I know that this was also a question in the report.

The care sector has been a priority area for the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority over the past couple of years, with a significant increase in intelligence and investigations being referred to the organisation. The GLAA has been working closely with the Care Quality Commission in response to the allegations of exploitation of overseas workers in the care sector under the visa system.

I should add to this because a number of noble Lords raised the fair work agency. As I have just mentioned the GLAA, I should in fairness also say that we are now in the process of creating a fair work agency through the Employment Rights Bill. The idea in relation to tackling modern slavery is that we are bringing under one roof multiple agencies that would have had some purview on tackling it. Those multiple agencies include the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and HMRC’s national minimum wage team. The issue raised this afternoon is whether this will improve things.

The idea is the same as that behind the creation of a recognisable way of fighting modern slavery, which is having an Act—the 2015 Act—and a single point of focus. Why would the new agency be better than those individual agencies in tackling modern slavery? Your Lordships can see, for example, that there will be investigations under the Fraud Act, which has a lower threshold than we had with those individual agencies, so we can probably prosecute more. We can certainly tackle the issue much more effectively.

I turn to the points raised by noble Lords on the right to work and the vulnerability of victims within the immigration system. This was a broad theme, and I want to provide an answer on it. On a victim’s right to work, we know that many victims already have the legal right to work owing to being British or having leave to remain. They are here, they are being exploited, they are British. Victims with a right to work in the UK can do so while receiving support through the national referral mechanism. Through the adult modern slavery victim care contract, support workers actively work with victims to support them with employment. This includes help to access the services of the DWP. We have DWP work coaches trained to tailor employment and benefits support based on the individual challenges faced by modern slavery victims.

Victims who have received a positive conclusive grounds decision may be considered for temporary permission to stay under certain circumstances. A victim who has been granted a period of temporary permission to stay will have recourse to public funds and no prohibition on work. They may also be able to enter higher education.

I should also mention, because I have gone a bit ahead of myself, that my noble friend Lady O’Grady raised many of these issues of fair pay and so on, but she also gave an example of good practice in the Australian visa scheme. While we have our consultations and look forward to how we can improve our response, it is important to take account of the Australian workplace justice visa scheme and other interesting laws that have been passed. For example, Australia is putting power back in victims’ hands to take legal action against exploitative employers. That is quite a new law and my noble friend Lady O’Grady mentioned this. It is the kind of thing that we should watch because this is an evolving area and protections, such as the workplace justice visa, are certainly interesting to watch to see how they unfold and whether those cases will in fact be taken.

I turn to the enforcement of the Modern Slavery Act, which a number of noble Lords raised. The Government will continue to work closely with key law enforcement partners—I realise that I am going over time, so I will speed up—to ensure that action is taken to bring the perpetrators of this horrific crime to justice. Over the next year, the national police lead in the modern slavery and organised crime immigration unit will lead work to develop a national framework for the investigation of modern slavery to support police forces domestically to secure better criminal justice outcomes. As was raised, we will work and co-operate with police forces across Europe and other areas to tackle modern slavery.

I turn to supply chains, which were raised by the right reverend Prelate and a number of other colleagues. This issue is vital and is, if you like, the growing area when it comes to tackling modern slavery. The Government are committed to working with international partners and businesses to ensure that global supply chains are free from human and labour rights abuses. We encourage businesses to monitor their global supply chains with rigour and to take steps to address and remedy any instances of modern slavery they may uncover. To answer the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, the Government take the approach that sustainable business is useless without ensuring that it is ethical and moral. We have seen a range of stakeholders, from civil society organisations to investors and media, scrutinise modern slavery statements and push businesses to go further. There have been some achievements, but the Government know that much more needs to be done on supply chains.

As I mentioned, this week the Home Office published a significant update to the Transparency in Supply Chains guidance, which will support business to produce high-quality statements. To further enhance transparency in supply chains, the Home Office runs the modern slavery statement registry, which brings together all the modern slavery statements in one place. It has proved a notable source for transparency and accountability in corporations. The registry now hosts over 17,000 modern slavery statements covering over 58,000 organisations. The Government are working on several improvements to the registry to increase the number of statements being uploaded voluntarily. I know the point was made by a number of noble Lords about the quality of data, which was of course a big issue in constructing the report. I know that the Home Office is very much engaged in improving the quality of data that we have.

I want to mention one point on public procurement, which was also raised. We now have the Procurement Act 2023, which came into force in February. While there is compelling evidence of modern slavery in supply chains, the Government understand the importance of ensuring that exploitative businesses do not take a share of the £400 billion that the public sector spends on goods and services each year. There is evidence to show that the Government are developing good tools to help public bodies put these policies into practice, including the modern slavery assessment tool. Public bodies can exclude suppliers from public procurement if they need to and if there is compelling evidence. It has been said in some places that there needs to have been a conviction before that can happen, but it is compelling evidence that needs to be adduced.

I apologise if I have not answered any other specific questions, but I want to make some closing remarks. First, I say to the chair of the committee, my noble friend Lady O’Grady, that I will contact my noble friend Lord Hanson to put together a meeting. That will help to maintain the momentum of the work in the report and to keep moving on these ideas with as much cross-party support as possible. I will ensure that many of the points raised today, including those not raised or answered today, are raised at such a meeting.

Modern slavery has no place in our society; it must be dealt with as the serious threat that it is. There is always more to do, of course, and the insight and knowledge on display here today will no doubt be of great assistance as we develop our approach. In the meantime, I hope my remarks have gone some way to reassuring noble Lords of the Government’s steadfast commitment to rooting out these crimes, stopping perpetrators and, most importantly, supporting survivors.

[Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, could he answer this question? Will the Government stop buying solar panels made by slave labour in China?

[Lord Moraes (Lab)]

I attempted to answer that specific point on the question of supply chains—without mentioning the solar panels, of course. The Government are committed, through a sustainable business approach, to ensuring that we do not buy products which are the product of slave labour. The threshold for that is not, for example, that these solar panel manufacturers were convicted of a crime in China. The threshold is that there should be compelling evidence that they have done that. We are moving towards a positive place, but no one would argue that this is an easy question. The global supply chains that we are dealing with provide so much of what we purchase in this country, but it is the Government’s position that we are moving in the correct direction on the question of supply chains.

14:36

[Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)]

I thank noble Lords for their powerful contributions today, which demonstrate the strength of the continuing cross-party commitment. It has been a very good debate. I thank my noble friend the Minister for his response.

I cannot mention every name in my brief response, partly in the interests of time and partly, if I am honest, because I am still practising this role. However, I was struck by the opening comments of the noble Lord, Lord Randall, that none of us can be confident that the clothes we wear and the food we eat are free of modern slavery, and that makes us complicit. I would add that it makes those of us with some power obligated to do something about it and take action.

Whether it is sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, county lines or labour abuses, and whether that is onshore or offshore, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, pointed out, the common thread running through modern slavery is the pursuit of profit for the dehumanisation of people. The noble Lord, Lord Whitty, talked about absolute control. As the noble Lord, Lord Kempsell, reminded us, this is a terrible crime, and it should be tackled as such.

Other noble Lords may not be aware, but my noble friend the Minister has a very long track record in countering racism and fascism and being a champion of workers’ rights. I know that he understands the dangerously corrosive impact of dehumanisation, both on vulnerable individuals and on society as a whole. Many of us have recognised that the Government are already taking steps to tackle extreme exploitation, and we welcome the positive commitment to engage with the committee’s recommendations, including a further meeting. As a trade unionist, sometimes the only outcome of a meeting was to secure another meeting, so I am genuinely taking that as a win. However, I encourage the Minister to relay our concern that, if we are to consign modern slavery to history, in all its vicious varieties, then the Government must go further and faster.

The noble Lord, Lord Smith, talked about how rarely we discuss preventing modern slavery in the first place, missing red flags, and the importance of international co-operation. I think we would all agree that the balance of power has swung too far in favour of modern slavery criminals. To put that right, victims must be empowered, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, pointed out, the police, the courts, inspectorates and civic society must be properly resourced. As the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, stressed, neither should the Government shy away from updating immigration legislation. On immigration laws, the imperative is clear.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Bristol and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about the importance of strengthening due diligence in supply chains. As a committee, we are keen to see much more ambitious policy on this front.

The Minister should take heart from the appetite for change from our cross-party committee, but I gently forewarn him that we will continue to hold the Government to account on progress. That is the very least that modern slavery victims and survivors deserve.

Motion agreed.

House adjourned at 2.40 pm.