Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Butler-Sloss and Lord Bishop of Derby

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, this is an amendment which I have only just seen since I was out of the country until the early hours of this morning. I think that it is very interesting. This is an iconic Bill which has generated the most enormous amount of interest right across the country and internationally. Everybody, including myself, is being asked to speak on this Bill and it has got to be one of which the Government can be proud. I think that the Government should be proud of having the Bill as it is, but it could be better.

The criticism from NGOs, which may or may not be justified, is that this is a Bill for prosecution and conviction and not one for the welfare of those who are the victims of trafficking and slavery. If the Government accepted this amendment, they would have in the front of the Bill a clause that would put to rest what the NGOs are complaining about.

What worries me about the Bill is the prospect of the press supporting the NGOs when this Bill becomes law and saying that this is not the iconic Bill it is intended to be but is in fact rather a small Bill that deals with rather limited issues. The fact that that is not true does not stop that perception—and, as we all know, we live in a world of perception rather than reality.

This is a very clever amendment, if I may respectfully say so to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the Government should look at it with enormous care and consider having it, or something like it, at the beginning of the Bill, while taking into account all the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made about it. I think that she is being somewhat overworried. Speaking as a former judge, nobody in the Family Division, the county court which tries the family cases, or the magistrates in the family proceedings court have the slightest difficulty in understanding what is meant by “best interests”. I would be astonished if those judges referred to in subsection (1) of the proposed new clause would have any difficulty in understanding that. Inevitably these would be seen as vulnerable adults, and “best interests” applies as much to vulnerable adults as it does to children.

The only point I will make, to take up what the noble Lord just said about the contrasts between subsections (1) of Amendment 1A and Amendment 1, where you have “and” in one and “or” in another, is that that is untidy. However, I am also concerned, as I said at Second Reading, about the word “exploitation”. If we are to have that word, it needs to be adjusted to a reference to whichever of the subsequent clauses deals with the definition of exploitation.

On the subject of those rather technical matters, this is a very interesting idea, and I urge the Government to look at it with great care. If they put something like this in, it would lay to rest the criticisms that the NGOs and then the press will make, which will have a devastating effect on what is a very good Bill. It would be very clever to put it in.

[The Lord Bishop of Derby]

My Lords, I echo what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, said, and I welcome and endorse the Minister’s commitment to making this a victim-centred Bill. The key thing for me in this proposed amendment is the phrase “personal circumstances”. One of the facts that have come home to me very clearly in my work with victims and those who work with them is that this is not just about the terrible circumstances that somebody finds themselves in because they have been trafficked or enslaved. A very high proportion of those people start off, before they are ever enslaved, as vulnerable people—they have mental health problems, or are homeless, or have low self-esteem—who very easily get drawn into being dominated, trafficked and exploited. What is challenging, and what we should take seriously in the proposed new clause, is for the Bill to draw attention to the personal circumstances of each victim or survivor. In almost any case these people will be vulnerable and will need to be treated as we treat others, with our development of a safeguarding framework and proper procedures to care for those who need safeguarding.