Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Hamwee Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I should like to make a short point on these amendments. I consider the proposals put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, to be extremely interesting. The idea that the proceeds, if there are any, should go not only to victims but to other organisations is one which, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has said, attracted the Home Secretary. I would particularly like to refer to the idea that 25% of proceeds should be distributed to organisations whose purpose is to prevent slavery. One example is that of the Bedfordshire police who spent an enormous amount of time and effort, and a great deal of the police budget, in managing to bring the Connors family to justice. They were the Gypsies who had a large number of men living in appalling accommodation. They had recruited them from homeless units or soup kitchens by offering them money but then treated them in the most appalling way. They eventually took a great many of them to Sweden, trafficking them from the UK to Sweden, where they were living in caravans again and working 18 hours a day on construction sites without receiving a single penny. They in fact came back to England but I am not sure we looked after them very well when they came back. The Bedfordshire police did an extremely good job and it cost them a great portion of their budget. Andrew Selous MP has raised this issue on various occasions and I am happy to raise it again in this House. That is the sort of organisation which ought to be compensated to some extent for the use of its budget—way beyond what is normal—to get a prosecution of a large group of very successful and very wicked traffickers.

Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, has said, unless you have the money you cannot give it out to anybody else. The Government are to be congratulated on adding criminal lifestyle offences to Clause 7, taking the provisions from the Proceeds of Crime Act. I suggest to the Government that they really ought to look at civil proceedings before the arrest has been made. If the intention is to make an arrest, knowing that the lifestyle of a particular person makes them likely to be a trafficker and therefore likely to be prosecuted, you want to catch the money before he is arrested because otherwise the minute he is arrested he will get it out of the country. Anyone can get money out of the country extremely fast. Therefore, there should be some provision in the civil courts—by which I mean the High Court in particular—that where there is sufficient evidence to be able to make an arrest there should be not a confiscation but a freezing order. Freezing orders are perfectly well known right through the civil courts. If you can get a freezing order a few days or weeks before the actual arrest is made, you may take the trafficker unawares. That is where you get the money to get the pot of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, sufficiently filled. There is no question that this is either the second or third most profitable criminal enterprise in the world. It is worth something in excess of $30 billion, quite a lot of which comes through this country. It does not stay long enough, but if we can get it in the civil courts, it can fill the pot that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, wants.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, is very interesting, particularly, as has been said, as it identifies the work done by organisations and the need for them to be funded to support individuals, as distinct from compensation going directly to an individual. It is complicated work, and in many cases very long term. However, I am sure the noble Lord would agree that nothing this might provide should let the state off the hook of its responsibilities. I am not sure about naming the organisations in regulations, but that is a detail.

As regards the work of the police—the noble Lord mentioned ARIS, and the noble and learned Baroness mentioned the Connors case—I am aware of another case where a different force put together a hugely detailed and complex plan for multi-agencies to be available when they raided premises and rescued a number of individuals. That must have cost an enormous amount of money. It was very important that those who were found in forced labour—I do not think that the case has come to trial yet, but I suspect that it will be forced labour—are received in a sensitive way and helped from the very beginning. That is intrinsically important, and it is important to ensure that they are in position to give the evidence that the police need to be able to proceed and do not disappear into thin air, as sometimes happens in these cases; facing authority, they do not want to have anything to do with it. Therefore, I am very pleased that the noble Lord has brought this to the attention of the House.

I will make one other small point on organisations that do this work. It sometimes seems that the smaller and less formal organisations are the most successful, because they are less likely to be perceived as authority by those whom they seek to help.

On the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Warner, my view remains the same as when we discussed the matter in the Serious Crime Bill. Of course we should assess and evaluate the impact of the changes made by the Bill—which is still a Bill—and be prepared to make changes. I was worried that it was not sensible to have a consultation that runs in parallel with the introduction of some changes that were being made by the Bill, which might be rather confusing. April 2015 is very close—there will not have been much experience, if any, of the changes included in that Bill; I am not sure when it is likely to be commenced. Therefore, the point about review and assessment and evaluation and consultation in general is good; I am worried about the timing.