Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Sentamu

Committee stage
Tuesday 8th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches support the noble Baroness, who is part of the eminent quartet that has signed the amendment. I had been wondering—but it was one of those thoughts that got away—about somehow trying to get the word “voluntarily” into the Bill in respect of actions taken by people that could be offences, and the first of these amendments certainly reflects a part of that.

As regards Amendment 49, I am sure that, through the briefings that we have received, there has been mention of phones—I will not try to inflame the Minister—which have not been returned by the authorities. They have been held so as to extract information, and they have somehow got lost in what I can understand must sometimes be a pretty chaotic situation. That is not relevant just for the offence but can be a hindrance to the NRM process.

As the noble Baroness was speaking, something occurred to me that may or may not be relevant, but I will just float it. When, some years ago, we were debating young women who were vulnerable to being pushed into forced marriages, they were advised to hide about their person, if they could, something that would be picked up at the border, while they were going through security, which would enable them to talk to the border officials. I simply do not know, but could people who are trafficked try that same sort of trick or device to attract attention when they would be among people who do want attention at the border? I throw that in as a thought. I do not know whether it would be covered by

“acting under the duress of slavery”,

but I express it anyway since it has come into my mind.

[Lord Sentamu (CB)]

My Lords, first of all, I want to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady May, for getting legislation about modern slavery on to the statute books. I want to say thank you very much, because we have people—some from my own country—coming here under that very disheartening reality. The second thing I want to mention is what the noble Baroness did with the Hillsborough inquiry. She resolved a lot of pain for a lot of people in Liverpool, so I wanted to say thank you for that.

The question I want to ask is this. Under Amendment 47, the line of defence would be that they were

“acting under the duress of slavery”.

What about a member of one of these criminal gangs that are bringing people over? They could easily say as their defence, “I was under duress when I did what I have done”. What would be the response to such a line of defence?

Protection of Freedoms Bill

Debate between Baroness Hamwee and Lord Sentamu

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and his co-signatories, as well as the organisations which have clearly done so much of the work of which we have heard. I commend them for ensuring that so many of your Lordships have been lobbied, which has led to an increasing understanding of the complexities of trafficking and the response to it.

In view of the Minister’s remarks, I shall cut down what I have to say this evening. What is needed for children in this situation is so multifaceted that the proposal for guardianship, if I can call it that, is appropriate, particularly because of the ability that such a person would have to look at the child’s interests as a whole and not as a series of separate issues with too much demarcation and not enough interconnection. What is also needed is somebody able to give time to the child. Adults who are trafficked can take a lot of time to articulate their feelings, their needs and their story. If that is so for them, how much time is needed for children?

Social workers—like the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, I do not criticise individual social workers—may be seen as representatives of the state by some children. Consistency and trust have also been referred to. Speaking more from instinct than knowledge, I rather doubt that all local authority children’s services can have as deep an understanding as is needed of the complexity of this problem. I would like to see more psychological services and a focus on specialised and supported foster care. Foster parents looking after trafficked children who have been rescued must have a hugely important role. If the reason for so many children missing from care is in part the bond that they have with their traffickers, who will be the people that they know best, whose language they may speak and who may well have taken steps to ensure that the child stays in contact, or if it is a matter of fear, voodoo and witchcraft, work needs to be done to counter that relationship. So we are talking about a range of actions, and this proposition addresses a lot of the issues.

In giving assurances to the House about how the Government hope to take this matter forward, the Minister referred to practical arrangements. I am sure that he did not mean to limit what would be looked at by the Children’s Commissioner to practical arrangements, because what is needed goes far wider than that. I appreciate that an enormous amount of negotiation must underlie the assurance today, so I do not want to push him into a place which is difficult for him, but if he can say anything about that, it would be helpful. Perhaps he could say something also about the work that might be done with the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, where a lot of work in this area has been done and where different arrangements perhaps apply.

[The Archbishop of York]

My Lords—