Nationality and Borders Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Morrow

Report stage
Tuesday 8th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Morrow (DUP)]

My Lords, I will make a brief contribution to this debate—when I say “brief”, I mean it. I commend those who have already spoken for their powerful speeches, and I trust that they will be enough to convince the Government that they should in fact adopt these amendments.

I started my speech in Committee by saying:

“For victims of modern slavery, escaping from their exploitation is only the beginning of their journey towards recovery.”—[Official Report, 10/2/22; col. 1885.]


The noble Lord, Lord McColl, has known this for a long time and has consistently brought this message to your Lordships’ House. I of course will support Amendment 70 today, and I trust that it will be pushed to a vote.

The Northern Ireland Assembly has also been debating longer-term support for victims, and, just yesterday, it agreed that it should be available for up to 12 months, or longer, if needed. But that recognition makes the inclusion of leave to remain for victims who get that support acutely relevant to victims in Northern Ireland. If they do not have the ability to remain in the UK, the option of support is just illusionary. We are snatching away hope for recovery and a different type of future, free from exploitation.

We need the Government to be an enabler of recovery for victims across the UK and to provide, through temporary leave to remain, an environment where victims can co-operate with prosecutors. We need to be clear that the UK is a very hostile place for traffickers. Amendment 70 builds on the success of the modern slavery legislation across the United Kingdom jurisdictions and puts the needs of genuine victims on the statute book. The UK has prided itself on being at the forefront of providing for victims of modern slavery; let us continue that tradition by voting in favour of Amendment 70, which I commend to your Lordships’ House.

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, this is another occasion when, from and on behalf of these Benches, I can say that we agree and can edit my remarks down—although not completely. Between us, my noble friend Lord Paddick and I have put our names to all of the amendments, save that of the noble Lord, Lord Alton—nothing was meant by that except that it slipped past us—and we support them all.

The noble and learned Baroness referred to the combination of seeing victims of trafficking through the lens of immigration, as if this is all a single issue, ignoring the trauma and exploitation they have suffered as victims. I add that, of course, not all victims are immigrants. In fact, the minority are, so far as we know —there is a lot that we do not know yet. The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner has commented that the Bill creates

“a distinction between victims who are deserving of support and those who are not”,

like deserving and undeserving refugees.

I will go back to trauma, which was referred to by the noble and learned Baroness. There seems to be an assumption that, if a story varies, even in a small detail, from one day to the next, the whole must be a lie. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned legislating in haste; I say that it is not us who repent at leisure but the victims who suffer hard at leisure.

I am no great fan of using domestic legislation to construe and apply an international treaty—I support Amendment 68A, but I simply pre-empt the point being made against me, referring back to previous amendments. It is a very neat way of not disqualifying victims from protection, other than in very limited circumstances. It is very difficult to see how the Government could oppose the amendment on the best interests of the child, if we are truly concerned about child victims. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Stewart, said in Committee that the Government do not consider that Clause 62 would prevent victims coming forward because of the “discretionary approach”. He said:

“All of us ... want victims of modern slavery to continue to come forward for identification and support, irrespective of their personal circumstances or the circumstances in which they came to be exploited.”—[Official Report, 10/2/22; col. 1877.]