Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord Deben

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, I support the principle contained in Amendments 66, 67ZA and 67ZAA, but also most, if not all, of the amendments that have been spoken to, all of which are immensely important to the debate. I also congratulate my noble friend Lady Cox on what she had to say, because that dimension clearly is important and needs to be taken fully into consideration.

It is essential that the commissioner’s role engages with the experience of victims, and in particular that he should have the authority to take a leading role in promoting best practice and the highest possible standards in the care that victims are given. There are two very clear reasons for this. First, I believe that we have a duty to protect and support victims of these terrible crimes. I will speak more about how I think we need to strengthen the Bill in that regard when we reach Part 5. To see that that duty is effectively carried out, there needs to be some form of oversight—someone to champion the cause, not of individual victims, but of all victims. Good practice in how to provide support and care to victims needs to be shared with other organisations that fulfil the same role. We need someone who can independently identify that good practice and help to disseminate those models or skills to the wider network of organisations involved in this support work. The recent review of the NRM was a welcome development, but ongoing monitoring of support that is able to pick up examples of especially good care provision and identify where things need to be improved should be much more effective. I understand that there are probably some assessment processes built into the contract for providing the victim support programme, but in reading the NRM review and the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Bill I feel that there is a vital co-ordinating and monitoring role that the commissioner could and should play in this regard.

The second reason why I support these amendments is that it is well known that victims who are well supported make better witnesses in police investigations and court proceedings. It therefore seems to me that, since Clause 41 requires the commissioner to promote good practice relating to investigations and prosecutions, he may well need to encourage practice that promotes the needs of the victim as a witness. Yet, by not giving him authority to promote good practice in the support and protection of victims, he will only be able to look at improving the way that law enforcement agencies treat victims in the course of investigations or court cases, not the wider structure of support. This seems to be very short-sighted and could possibly limit the commissioner’s effectiveness.

In conclusion, I find that it is rather disappointing to discover that the role is purely focused on operational improvements in law enforcement. The title “anti-slavery commissioner” conjures up images of a much more holistic and comprehensive approach to addressing modern-day slavery in our nation. I urge the Government to accept the principle of Amendments 66, 67ZA and 67ZAA and many, if not all, of the others that have been mentioned today, and expand the role of the commissioner to include oversight of support and protection of victims.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of a company which, in working with companies on their corporate responsibility, has to look at ways to eradicate modern slavery in their supply chains. One therefore has some direct understanding of the problems that the commissioner will face. I associate myself with the generality of the arguments put forward, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Baroness who spoke so movingly earlier on. It is obviously difficult to get the balance right and none of us should ignore the fact that, if you are not careful, you have a commissioner who is commissioner for everything. The Government are trying to ensure that the commissioner has a series of priorities and deals with things sufficiently narrowly so that he is not pushed all over the place. I understand the Minister’s problems, but I suggest that there are some elements in what has been said which may not have been adequately presented in the wording of the amendments but which the Government might like to look at to see whether they can bring forward amendments themselves to cover some of the central issues.

The first of these was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Warner, who pointed to the fact that the international implications of what we are doing here must not be ignored. Modern slavery is not a national activity: of its nature, it has international ramifications. We may well not want to put in the Bill that the commissioner may work with high commissioners, ambassadors and the like all over the world, but we must have something which would make it impossible for people to object if the commissioner, in his work, were to reach out beyond the shores of the United Kingdom. Otherwise, I do not believe that he can achieve what the Bill intends.

They may not be the ways of doing it, but the kinds of implication which the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, put forward have got to be thought of seriously by the Government. In practical terms, you may be working with a British company but, in order to give advice on its corporate responsibility, you have to deal with some possible slavery situation far away. If you were restricted in not being able to be in touch with, deal with and discuss with people in those countries, you would not be able to do your job properly. That is an important parallel with the commissioner.

Secondly, independence is a vital part of this. I am very excited about the Bill: it is another of those occasions when Britain has taken a significant step ahead of very many other countries. As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I see a sort of parallel to this. We are doing something of real value to the world as a whole. Drawing from my experiences with that committee, it is of considerable importance to your independence that you are seen not as a departmental subject but as open to advising the Government as a whole. I therefore hope that the Government will look again at exactly how the terms of the relationships between the Home Office and the commissioner are drawn. This is not because I think that either this Home Secretary or this commissioner will find it difficult to work together. It is that we are not legislating for this Home Secretary or this commissioner; we are legislating so that the office of commissioner shall develop in the way that offices develop in the context of different personalities in the Home Office and as commissioners.

Therefore, I hope that the Minister will think seriously about whether there are ways to make sure that the independence of the commissioner can be seen to be clear even in those countries where the idea of independence is quite difficult—which brings me to the core of this argument. We are of course legislating for Britain but we know that we may well be legislating in a way that will be copied by others. Indeed, Ministers have been very clear in saying that they hope that this will be copied by others. It is true that we will not deal with modern slavery unless it is copied by others.

The Government need to be very careful about assuming that, if you have the relationship which at the moment is adumbrated in the Bill, people will understand that the commissioner is as independent as he actually is. The wording about redaction and the like can easily be adapted by those countries where what that would mean would be that the commissioner would not be independent at all but would be the subject of whatever is their equivalent of the Home Secretary. One thing that we need to be careful about here is not to feel that other people carry with them the cultural understanding that we have when we talk about independence and know that that independence will in our system be properly respected. When my noble friend replies, I hope that he will not say, “Well, we all know that it will all be independent and perfectly all right”. Even if we knew that, the Bill will not be seen by others in the context of that knowledge. Therefore, getting the wording right and making sure that the independence is clear is crucial.

As chairman of the Climate Change Committee, I have to say that it is extremely helpful to be able to point to the Act and say, “I am doing this because the Act tells me not only that I have a right to do it but that I have a duty to do it”. That is important because the choice of what you do does not of itself imply a political or other bias. I am now about to start on the report which will assess the success of the Government in mitigation and adaptation, which will come out in the middle of next year. No one can say that it will come out in June because I have chosen the moment in order to inform some possible new Government; it comes out in June because the Act says that it has to come out in June. That gives enormous independence, because it makes sure that the choice cannot be cast into dispute.

My worry about the way in which this commissioner’s job is placed is that, at the same time, it appears to restrict him and not to give him sufficiently strong direction for him to be able to say, “I have done this because the Act requires me to behave in this way”. So I suppose that I am asking the Government particularly to listen to today’s debate and to say to themselves, “Are we sure we’ve got this balance quite right? Can we take from what has been said today a sufficiency of advice and information to rewrite this part of the Act in order to make the amendments perhaps not as extensive or as detailed as has been suggested but to make such amendments as will ensure that what the commissioner says he wants to do will be absolutely congruent with what the Act says he ought to do?”.

Otherwise, if from the beginning he does what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, reports that he intends to do, there is ground for arguing that that is in some sense outwith the scope of the Act. I have a very simple worry, and I ask my noble friend to accept it entirely in this spirit: it is that this great démarche—this Act of such importance—might find itself in this kind of argument, which is the last thing we want, very early on in its implementation.

Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Lord Deben

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I wish to focus my remarks on the R-word—redress—rather more than on the regulation side. Here before us, in the excellent amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, is an opportunity to do something simple but clearly important which should have been done years ago—that is, to close the redress loophole in property lettings and management. The more one reads and learns about this issue, the more surprised one is about how we got into this muddled position that we are in today, with one department—BIS—taking a different view from another—Communities and Local Government.

As we have heard, change will be achieved by bringing letting agents and those who manage leasehold property within the redress net of the Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Act 2007 and the main provisions of the Estate Agents Act 1979. Those Acts are both BIS Acts but, of course, housing is a CLG responsibility. The key thing that they do is, first, require all sales agents to be a member of an approved redress scheme and, secondly, give the OFT negative licensing powers to ban or reprimand sales agents for any misdeeds. However, neither Act has any sway over letting or managing agents, despite them interacting with consumers to an even greater extent.

I do not think that we should see access to redress as regulation. It is a consumer right and one of the eight consumer principles. It is true that consumers who are unhappy with their lettings or managing agent could go to court to get access to redress. However, as we know, very few do. These amendments are about mandating an alternative to court—alternative dispute resolution—which means that letting and managing agents must offer independent ADR to tenants, landlords and leaseholders. Therefore, I strongly support the intent behind these proposed new clauses. From the consumer perspective, they would mean that consumers with a complaint, after exhausting any in-house complaints procedure, if there is one, can take that complaint to an independent body approved by the OFT or its successor. This ADR will most likely be an existing body such as the Property Ombudsman, which already covers most sales agents, although I believe that there are other schemes as well.

What is the impact of this loophole? Surely it does not make any sense that a consumer who has a problem with a sales agent when selling, or even buying, a house has access to an independent complaints body, but if that same consumer—landlord or tenant—has a complaint about a lettings agent over a rental property or a problem with a managing agent who looks after their block of flats, they may not have access to independent ADR. While it is true that many, possibly a majority, of lettings managing agents are voluntary members of the Property Ombudsman—we have heard that already from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter—there are around 6,000 firms of lettings agents that are not subject to it.

Why does it matter that we target them? One only has to read the briefing from Which?, along with that from many other organisations which have already been mentioned, to find the answer. The sector’s problems as outlined by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and other speakers—and I am sure many others will continue in this vein—speak volumes. I shall not extend my time by reading out the Which? report giving various examples of landlords and tenants who have suffered in this way. Noble Lords will no doubt have a copy and can see for themselves.

I very much hope the Minister and the coalition Government will be able to accept the very reasonable and carefully defined amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, not least in view of what a Minister in his role—Mark Prisk, now the Housing Minister—tried to do on a previous occasion.

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, the longer one has been in this House—or, indeed, in the House of Commons—the more one believes that certain statements are made irrespective of the Government. Somehow or other Governments take on a particular view about certain things, and regulation is one of those things. It seems to me that Governments often take a very narrow view about regulation and seem to think that if they regulate at all, they will be accused of red tape, of stopping businesses and of every heinous offence. That is the reason why the previous Labour Government refused to do this and why the present Government have introduced this Bill without this clause.

I hope the Minister will take it from somebody who has been in elected and now non-elected public life for nearly 40 years that it is the duty of Ministers to stand up against that attitude, because here is an issue where everybody recognises that there is only one sensible answer. It is not sensible to have a situation in which those who sell houses have a code that is different from the code for those who rent houses, because those who buy or rent houses think that they are working in the same context. Indeed, as it becomes more natural to buy and to rent in equal terms—I do not mean in numbers, but that people make those decisions—we must help the consumer in a sensible way. The only sensible way is the way so eloquently put forward by the noble Baroness when she pointed out that this is not regulation but consumer rights. It is the possibility of a consumer having a perfectly reasonable way of ensuring that they get fair do’s when they go to court.

It is very important for us to press this. I am speaking because I am a strong deregulator. I do not believe in the degrees of bureaucracy that we have managed to land on business. In my own business, I am conscious that there is a whole series of rules and regulations that restrict the number of people you take on and certainly stop the expansion of British industry and a lot of things that can be done. This has nothing to do with that. The only people who can dislike this light regulation are those who have every intention of misbehaving. When one reads that list of people who are supporting this, it is very hard to think of any responsible, respectable body, apart from the Caged Birds Society, that is opposed to this proposal.

I say this to my noble friend. Whatever is in his speaking notes—and I have a horrible feeling that I could write those notes, because there is a kind of parallelism with what I myself was given in the past, and was often willing to ignore—I hope that he will say to himself, “Least said soonest mended if I can’t give way”. If he cannot give way, some anodyne references would enable him to go back and say to the powers that be, “This won’t go. This isn’t acceptable”.

We must find a way to ensure that rogue letting agents do not get away with it any more. There is no argument that can be put up by BIS that can overcome the simple matter of the rights of the consumer. That is probably the elegant way through and I hope that he will be able to take it.