Modern Slavery Act 2015

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Keen of Elie]

There never was an intention to establish any central monitoring system with respect to these provisions. The idea was that there should be far more carrot than stick, and that peer pressure should be brought to bear on companies in order that they address their responsibilities. This was not intended to be some sort of tick-box mechanism whereby they simply put a form into a central repository. However, every company or organisation will be required to have a prominent place on their website to which members of the public may go to establish that the statement required by Part 6 has been made.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

What progress is being made towards having a national website on which every business that has to have this message can put it?

[Lord Keen of Elie]

There is at present no intention that there should be such a national website.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to respond briefly to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. In September, Save the Children made the proposal to bring 3,000 children to this country. Six months have passed and the Government have chosen not to exercise their discretion to do so. We have heard strong arguments as to why we should welcome those children here and, because the Government have chosen not to exercise their discretion in that respect, my noble friend Lord Dubs is putting forward this amendment to make it mandatory. We can wait no longer. Every day we hear of children being exploited and abused, and whose mental and physical health is deteriorating. Let us use this opportunity.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I may also say something in response to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. The short answer to the very practical point that he made is for the Government to come forward with an alternative that does not tie them to taking in 3,000 children on the understanding that, if the amendment is accepted, they will be under a moral obligation to do something very similar. One argument that the Government have raised is that this may encourage other children to be put on boats and sent over. That may be but, if the Turkish agreement is to be of any use, one hopes that everyone will then go back to Turkey, certainly from Greece. However, there is a chance that that will not happen.

What really worries me—and I am obviously not the only one to be worried—is the plight of the very young children. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, talked about Calais. I understand that at least one child there is only nine. However, I am concerned about children under 14 and especially children under 12. They are particularly at risk not just from people traffickers but from those who would enslave them. Speaking as the co-chairman of the parliamentary group on human trafficking, I can say that there is a real problem with these children. Ten thousand-plus have gone missing. How many have gone into the hands of those who will use them for prostitution, benefit fraud, thieving and even forced labour?

We absolutely must do something to stop those children being victims. They are already victims by being in Europe if they are unaccompanied, but they are in danger of becoming slaves. As many have said much more eloquently than me, we have an obligation to look after at least some of them. As has already been said, we have a noble record of looking after children who are at great risk.

I admire the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for putting forward this amendment and I support it in principle entirely. I have the feeling that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, does not object to the proposal; he just objects to its mandatory nature. Therefore, I put in a plea to the Government. As I have already said, if they do not like the way in which the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is expressed, the very short answer to that is to bring forward a government amendment at Third Reading and they would have the whole House behind them.

[Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)]

My Lords, if I may say so, the noble and learned Baroness made a very important point. I imagine that there is a particular concern on all sides of the House about the very young children, but the problem is that, as I understand it, the amendment would apply to anyone up to the age of 18. That goes far too wide, particularly when the de facto age of maturity—or whatever the legal position is—has come down significantly. Therefore, I ask the Minister whether the Government might consider looking at an arrangement of this kind for children up to the age of, say, 12. I believe that as currently drafted, applying to children right up to the age of 18, the amendment goes far too wide. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will consider the Government coming forward with a statesmanlike compromise.

Modern Slavery Act 2015 (Consequential Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 2015

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Grand Committee

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I beg to move that the draft regulations, which were laid before the House of Lords on 18 November 2015, be approved.

Following Royal Assent to the Modern Slavery Act 2015 at the end of the last Parliament and since the general election, the Government have moved quickly to implement this important piece of legislation to help make progress in tackling the evil of modern slavery as quickly as possible. We have already implemented the consolidation of existing offences, raised the maximum sentence to life imprisonment, established the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, introduced slavery and trafficking risk and prevention orders, introduced the statutory defence for victims and introduced the transparency in supply chains provision, among other things.

The purpose of these regulations is to make a series of consequential amendments to other primary legislation to ensure that the Modern Slavery Act will work as Parliament intended and that no protections for victims present in other legislation are inadvertently lost as we start with the new Act. Where it is appropriate, because the legislative context is not limited to sexual offences, we are using these regulations to extend protections that were previously available only to some modern slavery victims to all victims of slavery and trafficking under the Modern Slavery Act.

The regulations would make a number of amendments that are quite technical in nature. For example, the previous trafficking offence was included in Part 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Certain other legislative provisions apply to all offences under Part 1 of the Sexual Offences Act, including the previous trafficking for sexual exploitation offence, but do not currently apply to the new trafficking offence under the Modern Slavery Act 2015. These regulations ensure that such provisions will continue to apply where trafficking for sexual exploitation takes place under the new Modern Slavery Act offence. Importantly, they ensure that a key protection for complainants in sexual offences prosecutions—that the defendant cannot directly cross-examine them—will apply in cases of trafficking for sexual exploitation under the Modern Slavery Act.

In addition, the regulations not only ensure that the protection from direct cross-examination for children from trafficking for sexual exploitation continues but extend the protection to cover all slavery and trafficking offences. This reflects that that protection covers a range of non-sexual offences. I assure the Committee that, if approved, these regulations will be in place in time to prevent any victims missing out on these important courtroom protections. The first contested trials under the new Modern Slavery Act offences have not yet taken place and are not likely to until at least late spring or summer this year, well after these regulations would come into effect.

The regulations make a number of changes to ensure that the slavery and trafficking reparation orders introduced in the Modern Slavery Act work as Parliament intended and that they can be recovered across the EU. The regulations also include a number of amendments to ensure that protections against child sexual exploitation continue to apply in cases of child trafficking for sexual exploitation. This includes ensuring that police can require information from hoteliers in appropriate circumstances.

For the Modern Slavery Act to work, as I believe we all intend it to do, we need to ensure that law enforcement and the judiciary will be able to use it in the spirit in which this House intended, and that we retain or enhance all the protections for modern slavery victims present in other legislation. These regulations are largely technical in nature but are none the less important to ensure that the law protects modern slavery victims, and I commend them to the Committee.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I am delighted with these amendments and with the placing of the Modern Slavery Act into the other Acts that is a necessary part of making this work. I have only one point to make, and it is in no way a criticism of the Government; on the contrary, I very much support what they are doing. The one problem I have is to be sure that under Regulation 26 the judiciary understand that if there is any confiscation of assets from traffickers or slave-owners, they ought to be prepared to give priority to making reparation orders to the victims. That is my only point of concern, to ensure that the judiciary know about that.

[Lord Rosser (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his explanation of the purpose and impact of this SI, which, as the Explanatory Memorandum says, amends primary legislation in the light of the commencement of sections of the Modern Slavery Act 2015. In particular, the amendments made by this SI ensure that primary legislation that contains references to the existing criminal offences is updated to reflect the new offences under the 2015 Act of slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour and human trafficking, as well as slavery and trafficking reparation orders. I do not have any questions to ask, so I conclude by saying that we support the purpose of this SI.

Immigration Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Wednesday 20th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Paddick and I have Amendments 78 to 91 in this group, in which there are also two government amendments. I am sorry that they are not the sort of all-singing, all-dancing amendments with which one might like to start the day’s proceedings, but they are important.

Schedule 1 provides for changes to licensing related to illegal working and covers licensed premises and personal licences. The Licensing Act 2003 sets out licensing objectives. They are the prevention of crime and disorder, public safety, the prevention of public nuisance and the protection of children from harm. It seems to us that they cover the ground pretty well and they have been found to do so, particularly when taken with the local administration of licensing which sets it in the local context. I dare say that the Minister will say that illegal working—the subject of the schedule—is a crime, but we have already explained our view that the schedule is futile at best, dangerous at worst and has unlooked-for consequences. I will not repeat those arguments now. If a crime is committed, then whether that specific crime needs a schedule is one of the overarching questions.

Amendments 78 and 79 would retain the Secretary of State’s right to be notified of an application for a licence and to object to that application along with the occupants of 25 Acacia Avenue, those next door to the Bull public house and so on, but it would delete the immigration officer’s right to enter to see—those are the words of the Bill—whether an immigration offence is being committed. In our view, the licensing objective should be about particular individuals and premises and whether they are appropriate for a licence to be granted. Apart from the substantive objections, this schedule produces a lot of bureaucracy. Is it not enough that the Secretary of State has a right to object to the grant of the licence? If the licensee has been employing one or two people without the right to work, it is possible that there may have been confusion, difficulties of checking and so on, so there is a great possibility for mistakes. That is very different from an operation being dependent on an almost entirely unentitled or illegal workforce.

I have mentioned public houses, but I know that there is also concern in, for instance, the curry house trade that these provisions will cause considerable disruption to their operation. What consultation has there been with various relevant organisations, including within the licensed trade? A lot of small businesses stand to be affected by this. The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association has analysed Home Office lists of penalties imposed for illegal working and says that many of them relate to small businesses. It asks a pertinent question about whether that is because they employ illegal workers more often or because they are targeted more often. Also, for immigration officers to be able to enter premises on something of a fishing expedition without the need for suspicion is a wide power.

Amendments 80 and 83 may look as if I am seeking to extend the powers of the Secretary of State; I am not. This is to probe how the powers will operate and, again, to ask what consultation there has been. The police can already object to the transfer of a licence because it would undermine the crime prevention objective in the exceptional circumstances of a case, so presumably the Home Office has experience of this and should be able to help me with that question. I also ask whether this right for the police is not enough in itself without extending a similar right to the Secretary of State.

Amendments 81, 82, 84, 85, 87, 88 and 90 would change “appropriate” to “necessary”, which is the term used in the 2003 Act. For instance, it would be “necessary” to reject an application under that Act for the crime prevention objective. To change that term to being “appropriate” to reject it for these objectives seems to give a discretion to the Secretary of State that is wider than we are accustomed to in current licensing law, and which I am unconvinced about.

Amendments 86 and 89 are also about the scope for the Secretary of State’s discretion. They mean that the Secretary of State must be satisfied—I will give that much on the basis of reasonableness—that refusing a licence or the continuation of one is necessary to prevent illegal working, not just that the grant of a licence would prejudice the prevention of illegal working, as the schedule says.

Lastly, and rather differently, there is Amendment 91. The schedule provides that on appeal the magistrates cannot consider whether, after the original decision that is the subject of the appeal, an individual has actually been granted leave to enter or remain in the UK. Why is this necessary? What happens if the individual is granted leave to enter or leave to remain but his initial application for a licence has been turned down? Does he in those circumstances have to make a fresh application for a licence, which will carry with it costs as well as difficulties in running a business, and indeed for employees of that applicant? I will hear what the Minister has to say about his amendments, but I beg to move.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I support what might be seen as the rather technical points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I am looking particularly at Amendments 81, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89 and 90. Where it is the practice in earlier legislation to use the word “necessary”, it seems inappropriate to use the word “appropriate”. One should keep to similar phraseology in legislation unless there is some very strong view to change it. “Appropriate”, as the noble Baroness says, gives a very wide degree of discretion—far greater than necessary—and I cannot at the moment see why it is necessary to have it wider than that. The other points—refusing continuation of a licence and so on—are similar. They are perhaps technical but, when they are worked on the ground, they have considerable force, and I am rather concerned to be broadening out what it does not seem necessary so to broaden.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 78 and 79, which would remove the Secretary of State’s power. It is a snooping power—a very wide power to search any licensed premises, with no need for suspicion, as the noble Baroness said. I will ask her question again in different words: what is the evidence for the growth in illegal working in licensed premises which justifies these new rules?

Immigration Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, explained that he was hoping to make things a bit easier for noble Lords with the reprinting. I welcome that and wish him well with it.

The amendments in this group are all government amendments, with the exception of Amendment 18, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, which seeks to amend a government amendment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ashton of Hyde, for explaining these amendments. One of the amendments refers to functions that were considered for inclusion. Can he help the Committee by saying what functions were considered and then not included? I would be interested to know that in relation to Amendments 16, 17 and 24.

I can see the value of being able to add further non-compliance matters by regulation. However, this should be by the affirmative and not the negative procedure, as proposed here. Such matters often benefit from a short debate in the Moses Room when additions are proposed. I think that many in the Committee would agree that this legislation is not to the same standard or quality as we saw with the Modern Slavery Bill, for example. For that reason, if for no other, we should have the affirmative rather than the negative procedure.

It could be suggested that Amendments 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 better define the labour market functions within the scope of the labour market enforcement strategy, by reference to specific legislation; I can see that point.

Government Amendments 243 and 244 both require the use of the affirmative procedures. That is welcome, but it contradicts the earlier decision to use the negative procedure, which I have referred to on this group. The last amendment, Amendment 246, would take out a reference to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. Yes, that is fine, but I wonder whether the Government should perhaps have taken the whole thing out of the Bill and brought a separate Bill back.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the greater powers for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, both in this group of amendments and in a later group. The authority has done extremely good work ever since its inception in legislation and I am delighted that there will in due course be powers for its officers to take steps under PACE. I appreciate that that provision is not in the present group, but I want to say that in case I am not here when that point comes up.

I want to put two points to the Minister. First, how far afield is he expecting the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to roam? In particular, does he have in mind either the hospitality or the construction industry, each of which should at some stage be under the control of that authority, or possibly this new director, in a way which is not covered at present? Secondly, if in fact the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is to have further powers, as it will, it is crucial that it has greater resources. That matter should be absolutely upfront because if its officers are allowed to become prevention officers—to be able to arrest and to do much more than they can at the moment—it really does not have sufficient resources to carry that out, let alone anything further that needs to be done.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, several noble Lords said right at the beginning of our debate that these government amendments came fairly late, but noble Lords on the opposition Benches are not the only ones to suffer from that. I will therefore have to ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her indulgence because I am afraid that her Amendment 18 was not contained within my speaking notes for this group. It is an amendment to our Amendment 17, but I do not have the details of how I should refute it with the power that I normally would. As my noble friend Lord Bates said right at the beginning, and as I think the noble Baroness mentioned, some of these issues may be revisited at times on Report—but I accept that that is not a very compelling argument tonight.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, talked about negative and affirmative procedures. I have never known him to agree that we should have a negative procedure when we could have the affirmative. I do not want to repeat the reasons that I gave, but we have made a distinction between regulations that create new offences or affect primary legislation and those which merely deal with existing offences, where we still maintain that the negative procedure is correct.

The noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, asked how far the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority will roam in future. I cannot tell her that today, but I absolutely take on board her point. As I said in my opening remarks, we intend that the authority should evolve. That is the whole point of our changing the Gangmasters Licensing Authority to the new arrangements, and putting it under the remit of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. The only thing we are likely to be concerned about—we have made this point before—is that it will be for labour market enforcement issues and not for other things. However, I take on board the noble and learned Baroness’s point on where it might evolve.

Of course, the Director of Labour Market Enforcement is required to outline a strategy. That is one of the things that we would expect him to do, having used the intelligence hub to work out where the efforts of his three enforcement agencies should best be employed. I also take on board that if we are expanding their role, there will be resource implications. My noble friend Lord Bates has already committed to write to noble Lords about the resource issue, so I would like to leave it there and ask that the amendments be accepted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, Amendment 12, together with Amendments 14 and 38, is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Paddick. The first of these amendments again goes to the relationship between the new director and the other bodies which the Bill concerns, in particular the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. The Bill provides for a strategy to be prepared by the director. Amendment 12 is probing in the sense that I am not sure whether the language is quite right, but the point is clear enough. It would provide that anyone else who is entitled to prepare a labour market legislation strategy under that legislation gets to keep it, so that their strategy cannot just be altered by some diktat from the director. Of course, in real life, one hopes there would be consultation and discussion.

As we have heard from several noble Lords this afternoon, most recently the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the GLA is a successful body. It has a board and it publishes a strategy. Which strategy takes precedence? In particular, what is the function of the GLA board under the new regime if a strategy is to be handed down by the director? It is important to know how the Government envisage that this will work. We start at the top of the tree with two Secretaries of State, who will have to sort out what was described earlier as “an envelope”. Then there is some sort of trickle-down arrangement. The Government must have thought about how the relative powers and the working arrangements would operate. It is not going to be that easy.

My other amendments are rather to the same point. Amendment 14 is about whether or not the other bodies should be bound by what the director provides. These amendments came before the Government’s mega-tranche of amendments last week. Again, I want to probe the relationship between the various strategies and whether Clause 2(6) affects the GLA board. It refers to:

“Any person by whom labour market enforcement functions are exercisable”.

Is the GLA a “person” for this purpose? Clause 2(6) refers to Labour market enforcement functions being carried out by enforcement officers, not by the employing authority

The last amendment in the group, Amendment 38, is on Clause 6, which provides that the director must set up what is referred to as an “information hub”. The GLA has an information hub. Is that to be superseded? Again, it raises the question of resources. Something like a hub does not just come naturally by shoving some pieces of paper into a file. One thing that will have to be addressed is the funding of the IT infrastructure. Who is to manage the hub? As I said, the Government’s new proposals were published after these amendments were tabled, so they have been rather overtaken—or possibly had their significance magnified—by the new proposals.

This morning on the “Today” programme, the Prime Minister talked, I think in the context of the police, about a country whose Government rely on independent institutions. He said something like, “Independent institutions should be able to exercise independent judgments”. That rather neatly encapsulates the quandary that I find myself in when trying to understand who will be able to be independent within this new regime. I beg to move.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I share the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, in relation to Amendment 12. As I said on the earlier amendments, and as agreed by everyone in the House, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has gained a great deal of expertise and is working extremely efficiently. The concern that I share and would like to ask the Minister about is whether the director is going to give the Gangmasters Licensing Authority a free rein to continue the good work it is doing. Is there not a danger it may be controlled by strategies set out by someone who does not have the same expertise as Paul Broadbent and his team? I would be very worried about putting the director over the Gangmasters Licensing Authority without clear instructions that his strategy must be very broad and that he should let the authority get on with the work it has done so well. It would not do it so well if it was confined by any sort of strategy that posed unnecessary restrictions on the work of Paul Broadbent and his team.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important area further and to look at the production of an evidence-based, annual labour market enforcement strategy as a key part of the role of the Director of Labour Market Enforcement. By following a single, overarching strategy with a shared view of risk, enforcement will be better co-ordinated and more effective.

A real concern was expressed during the consultation exercise on labour market enforcement, which has been referred to. The Government have of course responded to that, giving rise to the amendments referred to earlier. In many ways, this touches on the point raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. In terms of responsibility for strategy, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority currently reports up to the Home Secretary. Initially, it was I think part of Defra, but it was moved across to the Home Office because we felt that that was a more logical place for it to sit, particularly in the light of the introduction of the Modern Slavery Act. So the authority refers up to the Home Secretary, while the HMRC national minimum wage team feeds up its strategy to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, as does the Employment Agency’s standards inspectorate. So at the moment there are two different reporting lines. The proposal is that, rather than effectively having two separate reporting structures, there is an initial feed-in to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement, who then reports to the joint Secretaries of State. That may in fact result in fewer problems.

Amendments 12 and 14 appear to limit the director’s proposed role by not permitting his strategy to alter the strategies set out by any of the other enforcement bodies or by not binding the enforcement bodies to delivering the director’s strategy. The director’s strategy is not intended to undermine or take precedence over the enforcement bodies’ strategies; rather, we expect those strategies to be informed by the director’s strategy as they contribute to tackling labour market exploitation.

The GLA board will continue to be responsible for delivery of the GLA’s functions. What will change is that the delivery of those functions will sit within a wider vision of tackling labour market exploitation, an issue I will address in due course. The Government’s amendments will add the functions of the GLA board to the list of labour market enforcement functions. Furthermore, the GLA board will have a duty to exercise its functions in accordance with the director’s strategy. We believe that this will ensure that the enforcement bodies and the director can work together more effectively.

Amendment 38 brings me to the intelligence hub. Clause 6 as drafted gives the new director the duty to lead an intelligence hub that forms a coherent view of the nature and extent of exploitation and non-compliance in the labour market—something that the consultation and the Committee have accepted as being absolutely necessary. The director will use the information gathered to formulate the annual strategy for labour market enforcement. It is essential that the director have the power to gather information from those involved in labour market enforcement to enable them to set the annual strategy. Without this, the strategy will not be evidence-based and will therefore be unable to improve the effectiveness and co-ordination of enforcement, which is our objective. If the duty on the director to gather information was removed from Clause 6, that would lead to a different role than the Government have committed to creating.

To enable the intelligence hub to work, we intend to create a statutory framework to enable information and intelligence to be shared appropriately, with the necessary safeguards. We will bring forward amendments at Report to achieve this. I reassure noble Lords that the new intelligence hub will not replace existing information-gathering arrangements in the individual enforcement bodies, which I know was a point of concern. They will continue to gather and analyse their own data in order to plan their own operational activity. This will then be fed into the new intelligence hub and the director’s strategic plan, providing an up-to-date picture of areas where workers are at risk of abuse. However, the director’s intelligence hub will be wider. It is important that the director have the power to exchange data and intelligence with other enforcement bodies whose legislation is often breached by the same rogue businesses.

I also reassure noble Lords that we are in the process of identifying what resources, including IT infrastructure, will be required to enable the new information hub to be effective, and that the Government recognise this is just as important as creating the statutory framework. I hope my explanation will be helpful to the noble Baroness and that she may therefore feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I wonder if I could just come back. I am not so concerned with Amendment 12. I am much more concerned with what lies behind it. My particular concern is that a new director who organises strategy should not be organising a strategy of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which knows much more about it than he does. Therefore, this new director of strategy needs to have a light touch when he deals with an established organisation that has been doing very good work with a lot of successful prosecutions. I have not had that assurance from the Minister.

[Lord Bates]

I will try to be a bit more helpful if I can. I totally share the view of the noble and learned Baroness that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority is doing an outstanding job in its present field. That is one reason why we are increasing its powers. It is a recognition that it is an effective organisation and we want to make it even more effective. It is unthinkable that someone could come into this role—co-ordinating and sharpening the overall strategy of labour enforcement—who would not embrace the strategy already in place of such an effective organisation as the Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

Clause 7 prevents the director exercising functions or making recommendations in relation to individual cases. Decisions about sanctions to be taken against businesses are a matter for the enforcement bodies, which will remain operationally independent. However, the director may consider individual cases when examining the general issue during the exercise of his or her functions. I know that that relates to a previous comment, not to the comment just made. None the less, I hope that those additional reassurances—that the labour market enforcement director is building on strategies, ensuring that they are coherent and joined-up, and in doing so is absorbing best practice from a wider range of organisations involved in enforcement—will be welcomed. If so, the noble Baroness might feel these amendments are not necessary at this stage.

Identity Cards

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)]

My Lords, I have only just arrived. It is the turn of the Cross Benches.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I thank the Leader of the House. I do not see why we should not try identity cards. Those of us who drive have to carry a driving licence around with us, otherwise there are always difficulties with the police if you get stopped. I really do not know why we should not see whether it actually works. It works in other countries and why, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, said, should we not learn from other countries and try it here?

[Lord Bates]

I hear what the noble and learned Baroness says, but the reality is that we did try this. We had a live test of this and our conclusion was that it did not work; it did not tackle the problems that we wanted it to tackle, it was very expensive and there was no compliance from the very people that we wanted to be protected from.

Syrian Refugees

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Monday 9th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

As the noble Baroness knows, many of the people arrive at our border without any identification documents. To come back to the previous point, we need to make those checks and be absolutely sure that we are not putting the people of this country at risk by allowing people in. If there is a specific case, I am happy to take it up with the noble Baroness later. It underscores the importance of getting the message out that the way to approach Syrian refugees is through the UNHCR and the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Will the Government reconsider taking some of the unaccompanied children who have crossed into Europe? We have had a very good record, particularly at the beginning of the war, in terms of looking after the children. There are some who really do need our help as well as that of other countries.

[Lord Bates]

I am aware of that; that is Save the Children’s proposal, which it has talked about. The UNHCR has cautioned against taking unaccompanied children into the country because they are particularly vulnerable. The scheme we are proposing in Syria would enable not only children but their parents and brothers and sisters to qualify. We think that that is a better route.

Advertising of Prostitution (Prohibition) Bill [HL]

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Friday 23rd October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McColl, not only on the Bill but on the enormous amount of hard work and campaigning he has done over many years in his efforts to combat modern slavery and the trafficking of all people, including women, into this country. I am co-chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery and a trustee and vice-chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. In those capacities and personally, I very much support closing the loophole in the law and the purpose of the Bill.

As the noble Lord said, the sex industry includes many victims of sexual exploitation, including many who are trafficked to this country. I have a vivid recollection of going to a Romanian prison where I met a number of traffickers who were serving long sentences. One of them was very proud of what he had done. He ran a very big network across the whole of western Europe, mainly in Spain, but he was happy to tell us that he had brought a lot of women—from Romania, mainly, but also from Bulgaria and other eastern European countries—to the United Kingdom for the purpose of prostitution. He said, and it was quite patently untrue, that they were all very glad to be doing it. But I knew from going to Romania on several occasions that many of them were in fact victims of trafficking working in this country and other parts of western Europe.

I support any measure that will reduce the opportunity for those who are sexually exploited to be identified and to be working. But I had a very interesting email from the opposite point of view. In fairness to the people who sent it, I thought I should spend a moment or two on it. The National Ugly Mugs, or NUM, and the UK Network of Sex Work Projects, or UKNSWP, are opposing the Bill. One of their main reasons is that the impact would be the criminalisation of legally working sex workers, mainly in the escort industry. This, they say, is very unfair. They say it will give additional work to the police but they also say it is not enforceable. They say that there are benefits from advertising because it gives them the opportunity to identify and give support to sex workers. They also make the fascinating point that there is a danger that what they call responsible owners of escort advertising will be warned off and less responsible people will take over the advertising for sex workers. My example of the Romanian in the prison in Romania, working the whole of western Europe, makes me think that there are pretty irresponsible and very well-heeled workers running escort agencies—I have no doubt about that. I do not accept what those organisations have said but thought that, in fairness to them, since they have taken the trouble to email me, I ought to give your Lordships at least some of their point of view.

I very much support the Bill. I had not appreciated that advertising for sex workers was still legal. I hope the Government will listen to what the noble Lord has said and support the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

The noble Lord has brought forward a Bill which is a bit of a false prospectus. If he had talked about advertising, we would all understand that we were simply limited to talking about advertising. In actual fact, every economic activity involves advertising, because every supplier has to have some way of communicating with his customers or potential customers. So you could say that if you ban advertising you ban the activity that is advertised, anyway. We did not get into any of that at all, and I think that—

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

I shall give way in just one second, after I finish my sentence. The noble Lord has brought forward a bill of goods that is not exactly, when you open up the content, what you find on the label outside.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

Before the noble Lord sits down, perhaps I may calm this a little. I have absolutely no intention of supporting the abolition of prostitution for a number of practical reasons. It is one of the oldest businesses in the world, and it is likely to go on regardless of what Parliament might say. I am here today, when I would much rather be at home, to support a Bill which deals exclusively with advertising. I did not really hear a word in what the noble Lord said about advertising and its evils in relation to victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation. That is my line, but the noble Lord, for some reason—and I found it very difficult to understand what he was saying—seems to think that support for the Bill is support for the abolition of prostitution. They are separate subjects in today’s debate.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

When I read the Bill, I thought that it was slightly curious because, for the reasons I have just set out, if you succeed in abolishing the right to advertise, you kill the economic activity underlying it—and therefore, surreptitiously, there might be an intention to abolish prostitution, not directly by coming to the House with an explicit Bill to do that but indirectly as a result of the Bill before us.

I have to say in all honesty that the introductory speech of the noble Lord, Lord McColl, confirmed me in my suspicion that that is his long-term agenda—but we shall all have to read Hansard and make our own judgment on the matter.

Trafficking: Children

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

Will the Minister say when the results of the pilot project in relation to the child advocates will be available?

[Lord Bates]

We have had trials in 23 local authorities, as the noble and learned Baroness, who has done so much work in this area, knows. They are now being reviewed by the University of Bedfordshire and we expect to receive a report shortly. The full details of that report will be laid before Parliament, along with regulations as to what we intend to do.

Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Butler-Sloss Excerpts

Wednesday 25th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

I add in support of what my noble friend has said that it would be useful if the Minister could elucidate what sort of contract of employment we are normally talking about, because that would subsume many of the worries about the lack of rights that we are discussing.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have been involved in this Bill before it even existed, because I was a member of a working party set up at the request of the Home Secretary which Frank Field chaired. Sir John Randall and I were the other two members. We started in October 2013, and it was as a result of our report in December 2013 that the first draft Bill came into existence.

There have been so many changes to the Bill that the current version is almost unrecognisable from the first draft given by the Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, said, the Government are greatly to be congratulated on listening—and not only that but on tabling a remarkable number of amendments, having listened to what we have all been saying. There are child advocates, which the noble Lord, Lord McColl, must feel is one the great triumphs of his recent time in the Lords. Then there is defence for victims and protection in court; the existence of a commissioner, even if he may not have all the powers that everybody wants him to have; and, perhaps most astonishingly of all, the supply chain. That was totally opposed at the beginning, but it now forms an integral part of the Bill. So this House and the other place should really be very proud of what we have done to make a good Bill.

Of course, the Bill is not perfect. The Minister accepts that—it is a starting point, and it could be better. But all parties support the Bill, as well as the Cross-Benchers. There are gaps, and those gaps can and should be filled under the next Government, whichever sort of Government they are, because no Government will not support the concept of the Bill when it becomes law—as I hope that it will—and I hope that they will be sympathetic to several amendments. I warn the Government that strategy and policy issues also need to be improved—but again that is for the next Government. But what is perhaps of supreme importance to your Lordships’ House as well as to the other place is to have the framework of the Bill as part of the law of England and Wales. That is absolutely crucial.

I, of course, recognise the plight of overseas domestic workers. This is something that we need to tackle and improve over a period. However, there were criticisms of the previous Government’s visa requirements. The commissioner-designate says that there were opportunities for traffickers to traffic people from one employer to another under the visa requirements that came in before this Government changed them. The Minister reminded us that James Ewins—a sensible, intelligent lawyer—is looking at how the present system of visas works and how the previous one worked, and will report on that. It seems to me very sad that we should be going in a sense to war at the last moment, the day before Parliament prorogues, on an issue which is now the subject of a review which I have no doubt will come up with excellent recommendations. As the Minister has already said, primary legislation is not required to make the changes that James Ewins may well recommend, and which the next Government may well accept; they could be done by regulation.

In addition, the Government have made strong concessions. There will be the opportunity for those deemed to be victims of slavery to stay in this country and to get another job. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said that that applied only for six months, but that is not what Amendment 72A says. It says,

“not … less than 6 months”.

I read that rather differently from just six months. That seems to me an important distinction that I make in disagreeing with the noble Baroness.

Why at this moment, with Prorogation of Parliament tomorrow, are we still fighting over this clause? With one day to go we are in danger of the best being the enemy of the good. That has been said before but I make no apology for saying it again. We may be fighting a Custer’s last stand if this House and the other place find themselves scrabbling around tonight and tomorrow morning, trying to get a second go on the second ping-pong. If the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, persists tomorrow, what will happen? If he is not going to persist tomorrow, will he tell us when he replies why he is persisting today? The Government have already gone a long way on this issue. When we are so close to the end of this Parliament, do we really expect them to give in to what is in a sense almost blackmail?

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

That may be a very strong word but you need to look at what is happening to a good Bill, which is in some danger. It is not absolutely in danger because the other place can deal with it tonight, presumably, and we can deal with it tomorrow morning. However, I am looking at what will happen tomorrow if this House votes to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.

Personally, I cannot bear to see this Bill at risk. I have lived with it for so long. The House is aware of my credentials with regard to modern slavery and human trafficking. I ask the House to support the Government and oppose the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton.