Modern Slavery Act 2015 Committee Report

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Friday 28th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[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22 to 29 of the Illegal Migration Act on modern slavery have not yet come into force, and I very much hope they will be repealed.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.