Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, with reference to Motion L, I welcome the government amendments, which have the same effect as our original amendments of restoring the status quo ante with regard to pregnant women.

Before my round of thanks, I have one query from the lawyer who has kindly been advising us. He says that his only concern is that they are a separate provision for the new powers in paragraph 16(2C) and proposed new subsection (2A) of Section 62 rather than reapplying the protection of Section 60. The reason that this matters is that for the purposes of the time limit, the period of detention under the old detention powers would not be aggregated with the period of detention under the new detention powers. However, now, in theory, a pregnant woman could be detained for up to seven days under the old detention powers and then for another seven days under the new detention powers. Could the Minister confirm that this is not the intention and that the powers would not be used in this way?

I turn to my thanks. First, I pay tribute to Women for Refugee Women, in particular Gemma Lousley, for all their invaluable work in pressing this amendment, and also to David Neale of Garden Court Chambers for his pro bono legal advice. I thank all noble Lords around the House who have supported the amendments by adding their names, speaking in support, voting in support or deliberately abstaining. I am particularly grateful to those Members—largely women, I think—on the Government Benches who could not bring themselves to support the Government on this. That there was so much support for the amendments on the Government Benches is largely down to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, who I think of as a noble friend. She has been tireless, both behind the scenes and on the Floor of the House, as was recognised by the Immigration Minister yesterday.

The preservation of the time limits on the detention of pregnant women in recognition of the likely health impact of the original proposal to remove them represents one small beacon of light in what otherwise continues to be the gloom of a punitive Bill that will do untold harm. The government Motion was described on both sides of the Commons yesterday as a no-brainer. Nevertheless, it would be churlish not to recognise that the Government have listened on this issue at least, and I thank them for doing so.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Motion N1 in my name, which is just ahead of the Motion in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester. This is a rather different point; it relates to a situation where there may be a stand-off between the Home Office and the local authority.

Picture a child who is either being accommodated under Part III of the Children Act or for whom a judge or magistrate has made a care order which the local authority is complying with, and the Home Office, according to Clause 16, wishes the child to be removed in order to send them back to their parents or to some other place. Although it said to use it only occasionally, it does not say in Clause 16 that the local authority should be consulted or, rather more importantly, should actually consent. In particular, if there is a care order, that is an order of the court. As far as I can see, it would be very difficult for the Home Office just to pick the child up and take them away where there is a court order saying that the child must live with the family, or whoever it may be, arranged by the local authority.

Quite simply, what I am seeking is that the Secretary of State should bear in mind all these things and not just consult the local authority but gain its consent to the removal of the child from its care. It is a very simple proposition.

What I would like from the Minister is either an assurance that the Secretary of State will do that, or that he will take it back to the Home Office for the Secretary of State to consider and agree to it. I do not propose to put this issue to the House, but it is very important that the Home Office’s interaction with local authorities under Clause 16 be clarified and that the Home Office recognise the fact that it cannot just remove a child if it is contrary to the Children Act.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Report stage
Wednesday 28th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, which I strongly support, as noble Lords can imagine. I agree with everything that was said in support of Amendment 14, and I will add only two short points.

The first is that, over the years that I have been in this House, the Government have spoken again and again about the welfare and best interests of children. In the Bill, it is notable how the best interests and the welfare of children are totally ignored. Secondly, I visited Calais and met a number of young people, under 18, who were determined to come to this country. There was no question of them being pushed by any adults— I never saw an adult in any of the areas of Calais that I visited. They are determined to come, and they have good reasons to have fled their country. I heard harrowing stories of why they wanted to get away. Quite simply, this amendment would put back what they are entitled to and what is in their best interests. It should be supported.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will make two brief points in support of Amendment 14. Before that I repeat the question I posed earlier: where is the child rights impact assessment that we were promised? It is now Report, and we really ought to have it.

My first point is that, in Committee, I quoted from the previous Lords Minister and from Home Office guidance that unaccompanied young children are

“not suitable for the inadmissibility processes”.

I asked the Minister to explain why, given these recent statements, they are considered suitable now, and on what evidence this policy volte-face is based. I did not get a reply, so I would welcome one now, please.

Secondly, last week, I attended Barnardo’s launch of its report A Warm Welcome: A Blueprint for Supporting Displaced Children Seeking Protection in the UK. We were given a booklet about a comic book for children seeking safety, co-designed by children and young people with lived experience of the asylum journey. It ended with a letter to the children who follow in their footsteps, which said:

“I know when you came to the UK you had a difficult time. I know this because I did too. So don’t worry, everything is going to be ok … You have been through a difficult time but you are safe now … You can forget the past because you are safe and you can look to the future and start your life here”.


I was close to tears reading this poignant letter because, if the Bill goes through in its present form, the children who follow will no longer be able to start a life here. The booklet was called Journeys of Hope; the Bill destroys that hope. This amendment would at least give back some hope to unaccompanied children who reach the UK through irregular routes.

Illegal Migration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 4 and draw attention to my entry in the register, with regard to support from RAMP for this and later amendments.

It is vital that, in line with our international obligations, we uphold the human rights of men, women and children who seek asylum in the UK. It is worth remembering what Theresa May—no softy when it comes to immigration matters—said in the Commons:

“That matters because of the reputation of the UK on the world stage, and because the UK’s ability to play a role internationally is based on our reputation—not because we are British, but because of what we stand for and what we do”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/23; col. 592.]


Related to this is a warning from the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights in her letter to the Lord Speaker that the Bill, as summarised in Clause 1, would

“provide an incentive to other states, in Europe and beyond, to follow the UK’s lead in evading and abdicating its responsibilities to people in need of protection”.

Given that much of the Bill is justified with reference to incentives, one hopes that this warning might resonate with Ministers. If other countries follow suit, we could well find that we have more, not fewer, asylum seekers trying to cross our borders.

Of the conventions listed, I will focus just on those relating to refugees and children, although I also draw attention to the concerns raised by Redress, which warns that the Bill threatens to cause the UK to violate key provisions of the UN convention against torture. I will not repeat the highly damaging verdict of the UNHCR, other than to note, as did my noble friend, the unprecedented strength of its criticism, reflected in the stark warning that the Bill amounts to an “asylum ban” in contravention of the refugee convention. Every briefing that we have received, including from the EHRC and the Law Society, echoes these concerns about the refugee convention. Indeed, the UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, and other UN rapporteurs, have urged the Government to halt the Bill’s passage so as to bring it

“in line with international human rights standards”.

However, according to the Home Secretary, such claims are “simply fatuous”. She put forward two arguments in the Commons to justify her position. The first is that while the

“convention obliges parties to provide protection to those seeking refuge. It does not require that this protection be in the UK”.

However, the UNHCR explains that, under the Bill, the Home Secretary

“will not be required to assess whether removal”

to a supposedly safe country

“would be safe or reasonable for a particular individual or whether they will be able to claim asylum there. Individuals would have very limited opportunities to present evidence of the risks they would face”.

Thus, it warns that the removal duty placed on the Home Secretary

“creates real and foreseeable risks of refoulement”.

This is echoed by the UN rapporteurs. The proposed responsibility-sharing arrangements lack the required safeguards to protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees.

Secondly, the Home Secretary prayed in aid Article 31 of the convention which, she argued,

“is clear that individuals may be removed if they do not come ‘directly’ from the territory where their freedom is threatened. Denying those arriving illegally from France, or any other safe country”

is, she concluded,

“therefore, entirely consistent with the spirit and letter of the convention”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/3/23; col. 580.]

However, the UNHCR is clear that it is not consistent. Its legal observations on the Bill are explicit:

“Mere transit in an intermediate country cannot be considered to interrupt ‘coming directly’”.


As the EHRC points out, because of geography, “direct” routes to the UK are rarely available. Exploiting our geographical position to abdicate responsibility for asylum seekers shames us as a country. I therefore repeat the question that I asked at Second Reading: can the Minister explain why we should accept the Government’s interpretation of the refugee convention over that of the body with supervisory responsibility for it? That body was recently described by another Lords Minister as “a key partner”.

The UNHCR also warns that

“The Bill is inconsistent with the UK's obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child … because of the many ways it threatens or undermines the safety and welfare of children”.


I will not go into detail here, because a number of amendments specific to children will follow, but it is worth noting now that, in the view of UNICEF, which is mandated by the UN General Assembly to uphold the UNCRC and promote the rights and well-being of every child, children should be removed from the scope of the Bill in order to uphold the Government’s

“duties to act in the best interests of the child”

as set out in the UNCRC. Similarly, the Children’s Commissioner, who has demonstrated a passionate concern about the Bill’s implications for children, has warned that it

“would place the UK in clear breach of its international law obligations under a range of children’s rights treaties”.

The equality impact assessment, which finally appeared on the morning of Second Reading, assures us that

“the Home Office will continue to comply”

with the duty under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009

“to have regard to the interests of children as a primary factor in immigration decisions affecting them”.

As UNICEF reminds us, this duty was enacted in order to implement the UNCRC “best interest” requirement. Yet, the equality impact assessment tries to wriggle out of the duty by arguing that:

“The duty does not mean that it is the only factor that must be considered”.


In effect, it is being treated as a secondary rather than a primary factor, an issue to which I will return in a later group. We still await the child rights impact assessment called for by the Children’s Commissioner as essential to ensure consistency with the best interest requirements. It was promised “in due course” in a Written Answer on 17 May, so where is it?

Relevant here too is the position of the devolved nations. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has warned that the Bill could contravene the Good Friday/Belfast agreement and Windsor Framework in a number of ways. Has the Minister read its critique, and will the Government be publishing a response to it? The Welsh Civil Society Forum points out that Wales’s “child first, migrant second” approach, in line with its incorporation with the UNCRC, risks being undermined. As the Constitution Committee points out in its critical report on the Bill, while

“international relations are reserved matters … observing and implementing international obligations are devolved”.

What is the view of the devolved legislatures?

In conclusion, we must take note of what national and international human rights bodies are saying about this Bill. To echo a point made by other noble Lords, if the Government genuinely believe that the Bill meets the obligations in the conventions listed in the amendment, why not accept it now? Refusal to do so will only reinforce the belief of the UNHRC and others that this Bill marks the abrogation of the UK’s global responsibilities.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

I would happily support all the amendments, although I would prefer Amendment 4, which I think expresses it more accurately, perhaps, than the others. I only really want to make one point because so many points have been made with which I entirely agree and they are almost unanimous across the Committee, as perhaps the Committee is noticing. We heard from other speakers that the Prime Minister put his name to that convention or treaty earlier in Reykjavik in which he is supporting international conventions. The Minister in the other place spoke about caring about international conventions. The question I want to ask the Minister is: looking at this Bill, looking at how it has been pulled apart in Clause 1, does the Minister really feel able to say that the Government care at all about international obligations?

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Committee stage & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 1st February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am very happy to have put my name to this amendment. I support entirely what the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, has just said, so I will not weary the House at this time by repeating any of it.

Local welfare provision schemes are vital to the ability of the Domestic Abuse Bill to offer what is needed in local authority areas, particularly in emergency situations, but also more broadly. It is very important that local authorities have sufficient funding. Again and again during debates on the Bill we have listened to those who have said, quite rightly, that the Bill is a good Bill but, unless it has the money, it will not work. Again and again we get very good legislation, but it does not get implemented. The main reason for the failure to implement good legislation is the lack of funding. We absolutely must not find ourselves doing that with this very good Bill. I would only add to it to please, please include welfare provision for victims of domestic abuse and those who suffer from forced marriage or modern slavery.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I was pleased to add my name to Amendment 101, which in some ways follows on from my group of amendments on social security, debated last Wednesday.

If we had a decent social security system that provided genuine security to survivors of domestic abuse, including economic abuse, and still had a national emergency scheme like the Social Fund, we might not need local welfare assistance schemes. As it is, such schemes, which constitute the final safety net—leaving aside charitable support—are in a parlous state, despite the welcome injection of cash to help cope with the pandemic.

When local welfare assistance schemes were introduced to replace the national Social Fund, the Government refused to make them compulsory or to ring-fence the money allocated, despite your Lordships’ best efforts. It is no surprise, therefore, that when local authorities are strapped for cash because of years of cuts, research by the Children’s Society last year found that one in seven local authorities does not even run a scheme any more. It found that, of 121 authorities that provided spending data, about three-quarters spent less than half their allocated budget on local welfare assistance schemes. That budget has itself been cut, so that overall, it stands at less than half the money that was allocated to the Social Fund it replaced.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, has pointed out, the lack of any regulation has given rise to our old friend the postcode lottery, which is particularly damaging to domestic abuse survivors who might find themselves excluded by local connection criteria if they have moved local authorities to escape their abuser. A woman might find herself excluded because she is subject to the “no recourse to public funds” rule. It is essential that any guidance issued under this amendment, should it eventually pass, ensures that these groups are covered.

More generally, domestic abuse survivors need the security of knowing that they can get appropriate help from local authorities and not just help in kind which may well not be appropriate. It is not good enough that we have to rely on a charity to provide basic information on state local welfare assistance schemes because central government have taken the Pontius Pilate approach and washed their hands of all responsibility for the schemes, ignoring the recommendations of the Work and Pensions Committee in a previous Parliament.

Paul Maynard MP on the Government Back Benches is leading a cross-party call tomorrow in the Commons for a review of local welfare assistance schemes, supported by among others former Secretary of State Iain Duncan Smith. Mr Maynard stated:

“We need to ensure we learn the lessons of the pandemic to embed a better provision of emergency support for some of the most vulnerable in our society.”

This amendment would at least require central government to exercise some responsibility towards this particularly vulnerable group of people and it therefore deserves support.

I also want to speak briefly in support of Amendment 176, leaving it to the sponsors of the amendment to make the case more fully. I am sure no one would dispute the importance of specialised domestic abuse provision for a range of minority groups, including particular provision by and for domestic abuse victims and survivors. It is just such provision which has been particularly vulnerable to funding cuts and changes in commissioning practises in recent years, as was discussed earlier. That is sufficient reason for supporting this amendment, but it would also go some way to redress the balance, following the welcome introduction in the Bill of a duty on local authorities to assess the need for accommodation-based services by ensuring the duty in this new clause covers community-based services. As important as accommodation-based services are—they are very important—the Justice Secretary noted at Second Reading debate in the House of Commons that 70% of domestic abuse victims never set foot in a refuge. Many of them will seek support from community-based services.

The Government say they need more evidence about the need for community-based services and that nothing can be done until the domestic abuse commissioner designate has completed her investigation. However, the domestic abuse commissioner herself and organisations on the ground insist there is ample evidence to make legislative provision now. What further evidence do the Government need?

In Committee in the Commons, the Minister assured MPs that

“the Government are committed to addressing”

Whatever the domestic abuse commissioner’s findings are,

“that the commissioner will publish her report under clause 8”,

and the Government are

“required to respond to it within 56 days.” ”—[Official Report, Commons, Public Bill Committee, 11/6/20; col. 249.]

That is all well and good, but this Bill will be on the statue book by then. The chances of another Domestic Abuse Bill coming along in the near future must be slim—just look at how long it has taken us to get to this point on this Bill. I hope the Government will listen to the experts, the domestic abuse commissioner designate and organisations on the ground and extend the duty on local authorities to assess the need for community-based services and accept this amendment as a way of doing so.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 19th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

One word that has not been used at all in this debate is “reciprocity”. It is crucial in this area and that covered by the next amendment that there is reciprocity between the United Kingdom Government and the Governments of the EU on areas such as the protection order and the other orders that are so important in relation to domestic violence.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

When the noble Baroness looks at Hansard, I should be very grateful if she could address the specific questions that I asked about the future of funds that we will no longer be part of and perhaps write to those of us who spoke in the debate.

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has just said. One other way of looking at the convention is that it acts as a useful nudge for people to remember what it is that they ought to have in mind.

The year 1989 was extremely important because not only did we pass the Children Act, it also saw the United Nations convention. It is extraordinary that for some reason this country, England, is lagging behind Scotland and Wales which have managed to put it into their primary legislation while we are failing to do so. When I was a judge I tried a great many family cases. Whenever I heard a case relating to children, of course I took the United Nations convention into account, and I always thought it rather odd that there I was, applying the statutory law of the Children Act and going outside it to apply the United Nations convention that for some reason the Parliament of our country was not prepared to pass as part of English law. Here we are, all this time later in 2016 and we have fallen behind the smaller parts of this wonderful United Kingdom. It really is about time that we caught up and I find it extraordinary that the Government are not welcoming this with open arms.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment and the arguments that have been put so far. I will not repeat what I said on Report but I did raise two questions that I did not feel were answered. I asked the Minister to spell out what further evidence, beyond the evidence we have from the experience of Scotland and Wales which we have heard a little about today, the Government need to convince them of the practical value of such a duty. They have been arguing that they do not see what the practical value is. I also asked what evidence they had that it would produce box-ticking rather than cultural change. What the Minister did say was quoted by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, earlier and I shall repeat it:

“We believe that the way to promote children’s rights is for strong practitioners locally to listen to children and to act in ways which best meet their needs. A duty alone will not do that, and risks practitioners focusing on the wording of the legislation rather than on practice”.—[Official Report, 8/11/16; col. 1089.]

Of course a duty alone will not do that, but surely practice underpinned by a duty is more likely to be good practice than practice that is not underpinned by a duty. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, I am surprised and disappointed that the Government are so resistant to what is, as he put it, such a minimal responsibility that will be placed on them. As we said, it sends out all the wrong messages as to this Government’s commitment to the UN convention.

It is good to hear that the Government have said they are still considering this issue. Given they know that there is so much support in this place it is a shame they have taken their time considering it, but can we have a commitment that when the Bill goes to the House of Commons, a clear statement will be made by the Minister there as to what will be done to reflect the very strong views expressed in this House and which I am pretty sure will be expressed in the other place also?

Children and Social Work Bill [HL]

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Wednesday 29th June 2016 Grand Committee

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, as the only person in this Room who will have applied the Children Act from the day it became law until I retired as a judge in 2005, perhaps I may say first that I agree strongly with what the noble Lords, Lord Warner and Lord Ramsbotham, said, and particularly with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who said that we must not make corporate parenting—which I entirely support—too complicated. There is just a danger that we may be putting too much in. Everything that is set out in the amendments is right, but I am not absolutely certain whether it all has to be in primary legislation.

I should like to pick up the phrase “have regard to”. I can see the Minister being advised by his team that it is a phrase which is used in the Children Act, particularly in Section 1, which states that,

“the court shall have regard to”.

In my view, there is a great difference between the court having regard and others doing so. Judges in family cases are trained to know what is meant by the phrase, which means that they have to take the issues into account and then they have a checklist to decide what in fact they should actually be doing. But it is interesting to note that Section 17 of the Act does not say that a local authority should “have regard to”; it talks about the “general duty” of every local authority. It seems to me that there is a very real distinction between having regard if you are a judge or a magistrate trying cases and having regard if you are a social worker with very considerable financial constrictions.

I cannot understand, I have to say, why we need the phrase “have regard to” when those who drafted the Bill took the trouble to say “must”. The phrase “must act in the best interests” is a very simple way of looking at it. But the phrase,

“must, in carrying out functions … have regard to the need”,

is, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, pointed out, a let-out.

So having started listening to this argument on the basis that “have regard” is a perfectly good phrase that I applied day in and day out for many years, I think that there is a real distinction between the judiciary and the magistracy having regard and the way in which local authorities should be told rather than being left to exercise their discretion, which is rather different.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly in support of what my noble friend Lady Armstrong said—but perhaps with some qualification. The parents that we are talking about are not necessarily dysfunctional, but sometimes they are struggling with enormous material problems of poverty, housing and homelessness. It is easy sometimes for words to be misinterpreted, but I hope we can remember, in all that we are talking about, that sometimes we are talking about the families in this country that have the greatest struggles with poverty. The stress of getting by can sometimes be just too much, and that is why their children are taken away from them.

Immigration Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I want to respond briefly to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. In September, Save the Children made the proposal to bring 3,000 children to this country. Six months have passed and the Government have chosen not to exercise their discretion to do so. We have heard strong arguments as to why we should welcome those children here and, because the Government have chosen not to exercise their discretion in that respect, my noble friend Lord Dubs is putting forward this amendment to make it mandatory. We can wait no longer. Every day we hear of children being exploited and abused, and whose mental and physical health is deteriorating. Let us use this opportunity.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, perhaps I may also say something in response to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. The short answer to the very practical point that he made is for the Government to come forward with an alternative that does not tie them to taking in 3,000 children on the understanding that, if the amendment is accepted, they will be under a moral obligation to do something very similar. One argument that the Government have raised is that this may encourage other children to be put on boats and sent over. That may be but, if the Turkish agreement is to be of any use, one hopes that everyone will then go back to Turkey, certainly from Greece. However, there is a chance that that will not happen.

What really worries me—and I am obviously not the only one to be worried—is the plight of the very young children. The noble Baroness, Lady Sheehan, talked about Calais. I understand that at least one child there is only nine. However, I am concerned about children under 14 and especially children under 12. They are particularly at risk not just from people traffickers but from those who would enslave them. Speaking as the co-chairman of the parliamentary group on human trafficking, I can say that there is a real problem with these children. Ten thousand-plus have gone missing. How many have gone into the hands of those who will use them for prostitution, benefit fraud, thieving and even forced labour?

We absolutely must do something to stop those children being victims. They are already victims by being in Europe if they are unaccompanied, but they are in danger of becoming slaves. As many have said much more eloquently than me, we have an obligation to look after at least some of them. As has already been said, we have a noble record of looking after children who are at great risk.

I admire the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, for putting forward this amendment and I support it in principle entirely. I have the feeling that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, does not object to the proposal; he just objects to its mandatory nature. Therefore, I put in a plea to the Government. As I have already said, if they do not like the way in which the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is expressed, the very short answer to that is to bring forward a government amendment at Third Reading and they would have the whole House behind them.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I fully support the amendment—as the Minister knows, because I told him some time ago. I take the view that the recent change in the visa for domestic servants is shocking, because it puts a relatively small number of people into an utterly impossible situation. They can choose either to continue to be a slave, or to be deported. That is just not acceptable.

However, if the Government are not disposed to do anything effective about the visa, they might be interested in some discussions that I have had with the creative and inventive researcher of Frank Field MP. He has come up with an analogy that the Minister might just find interesting. Women who come over here with a marriage visa and become the victims of domestic violence are entitled to what is called a DDV—destitution and domestic violence—concession. This concession allows them three months’ access to public funds while their cases are being sorted out by the Home Office, with a view to deciding whether they will be given the right to remain here, or whether, after those three months, they will have to go back.

I ask the Minister, at the very least, to say whether there is not a very close analogy between such a domestic servant and a woman coming over here with a marriage visa who then has to leave home because of domestic violence. Goodness me, some of the violence that women in domestic servitude suffer is probably worse than the domestic violence suffered by a woman who has come over with a marriage visa. I suggest that three months is too short a period for a victim of slavery, so I ask the Minister to consider the marriage visa and see whether the same conditions could apply, by analogy, to the visa for domestic servants. I ask for six months instead of three months for these women to sort themselves out, and for their cases to be sorted out by the Home Office. If at the end of six months they had to go back, that would be a rather different situation, because they would have had some time at least, with public benefit, to try to see what their future lives might be. The marriage visa analogy may not be as good as some other means, but I urge the Minister at least to look at it as a possible alternative.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, a powerful case has been made for the amendment, and I simply want to add my support. This is such an important issue, which goes to the heart of what the Bill is about. The Minister, in his letter to Peers after Second Reading, said that he shared noble Lords’ determination to stamp out all forms of modern slavery, including abuse of domestic workers. That is a welcome aspiration, which has been repeated in various forms in various places.

The centrality of this issue to the Bill is underlined by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. On the basis of studies that it has funded, it writes that,

“there is most risk of forced labour where an individual’s work visa is tied to a particular employer. The most commonly cited example is the situation of overseas domestic workers who, since 2012, are again no longer allowed to change employers within the same category and hence become trapped in abusive situations”.

Evidence of the effects of being so trapped is, as we have heard, provided by organisations such as Kalayaan, which works with overseas domestic workers. I pay tribute to its work. Kalayaan argues that all the available evidence suggests that the change in the visa,

“has facilitated their exploitation and abuse, including trafficking”.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has said, Kalayaan details numerous ways in which the abuse experienced by overseas domestic workers who register with them has worsened since the change in the rules.

In their response to the Joint Committee on the draft Bill, the Government suggested that the previous rules “potentially encouraged abuse” because they enabled employers to bring domestic workers to this country for longer periods. Do the Government have evidence of such abuse? Or is this a hypothetical potential, which needs to be set against the actual evidence of abuse that has happened since 2012? In that time, as we have heard, abuse and exploitation has got much worse. It should also be set against the fact that the pre-2012 regime was cited by both the ILO and the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants as best practice. As the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, has observed, this was one reason why the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which I am a member, regarded,

“the removal of the right of an Overseas Domestic Worker to change employer as a backward step in the protection of migrant domestic workers.

We recommended that the Bill should be amended to reinstate the pre-2012 position.

Given the clear evidence of how the removal of that protection has facilitated abuse, given the Government’s own commitment to stamp out abuse of overseas domestic workers, and given that I feel both Ministers are reasonable people, I hope that they will feel able to take this amendment away, think again, and bring forward their own amendment before Report.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I have put my name in support of these amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord McColl of Dulwich. He and I have battled for three years—he having taken the lead—and this is a great moment. The Government are to be congratulated on Clause 47. They are to be congratulated on going as far as they have, but they have not gone far enough.

One of the most important points made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, was on the child advocate having an absolutely clear statutory position. I remember discussing this with representatives of Barnardo’s who had had to work from time to time with local authorities on children in whom they had an interest and who found that some local authorities would not help them because they had no statutory power. This is a serious matter. You have to be able to say to a local authority, “You’ve got to give this to me”, and not, “Please would you mind giving it to me?”. It is a crucial distinction. In Clause 47(4), to which the noble Lord referred, the fact that it says:

“The Secretary of State may make regulations about functions”,

and about,

“requiring public authorities to co-operate with, and provide information to, child trafficking advocates”,

is not good enough. The word has to be “must”; “may” will not do.

As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, also pointed out, certain basic things are to be found in our Amendment 86H, the majority of which have to be in primary legislation. However, I can see that much of Amendment 86 could be done by regulation. It seems to me that the Government should go away and have a look at these two amendments. Some provisions could appropriately be made by regulation but the really important ones need to be made in primary legislation to give the child trafficking advocate the jurisdiction, to use a legal word, or actual control over what they wish to do for the child by working with local authorities, the police and other agencies, including the National Health Service. They would need to have the right to require those agencies to provide them with documentation and information about the child who is a trafficked victim. Other than that, each of these agencies may, and probably would, be very difficult about supplying the information. That information is crucial for the advocate, who should be there from the beginning of the identification of the child to the moment when the child is settled. With these amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, three years on from when we started, we have got a long way, but the Government need to listen to see that it is not quite sufficient. We need to give the child trafficking advocate the powers as well as the duties.

My last point is about the power to appoint and instruct legal representatives. It is also absolutely crucial to give that child trafficking advocate the powers that these children—mainly brought over from other countries, although there are also some internal children—actually need from them. For those reasons, I strongly support these amendments. As I say, some provisions could be in regulation but there are basic points that have to be in primary legislation.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

I support Amendment 85A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to which I was pleased to add my name. I also express my support for the case made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and pay tribute to him for his role in bringing us as far as we have got.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights made the case for a guardian or advocate system for all unaccompanied migrant children in its report Human Rights of Unaccompanied Migrant Children and Young People in the UK. In that report we pointed out that,

“the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child called for the establishment of a system of guardianship in its General Comment No. 6. It says a guardian should be present in ‘all planning and decision-making processes’ to provide ‘the continuum of care required by the child’. The presence of a guardian was also a specific recommendation to the United Kingdom in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s State Report in 2008, which called for an independent system to ensure that a child’s best interests was considered throughout the decision-making process. The UNHCR insisted that a guardian would help ‘best interests remain a primary consideration throughout the procedure’”.

We repeated our recommendation in our report on the Modern Slavery Bill. In essence, the argument is very much that put by Sarah Teather MP in the Public Bill Committee that any unaccompanied child is vulnerable. This is recognised in other European countries, including Scotland. Indeed, these children become vulnerable to trafficking, a point made by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights. It argued that unaccompanied children and children without parental care living in residential institutions are at higher risk of being trafficked. In response to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, I suggest that that is perhaps one reason why it is appropriate for this amendment to be in the Bill.

I understand the Government’s fear, as expressed in the Public Bill Committee, that this would risk diluting the advocates’ skill set and expertise and that spreading the expertise too thinly could mean trafficked children not receiving the support that they need, a point made by the Minister, Karen Bradley. However, I think that this argument is weakened by the powerful argument put by the noble Lord, Lord Patel—it is an argument that civil society groups, particularly those in the Refugee Children’s Consortium, have put to us—that we do not always know who is a trafficked child. In order to ensure that trafficked children are not falling through the net, it is important that the advocate or guardian is not restricted only to helping trafficked children. Again, I hope that that meets the reservation expressed by the noble Lord, Lord McColl. It is essential for trafficked children for this to be widened. I hope that the Minister will address this argument and think a bit further about the argument about dilution, which I think is misplaced.

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Tuesday 14th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I regret that I was not able to be present for the Committee stage of the Bill. As the House knows, there were various clashes of other important Bills at the same time, so I come new to this issue. It seems to me that what the Government are trying to do here is to give an additional power to the courts. That point has not yet been made by anyone, other than the Minister. It is of course a matter entirely for the court whether or not such an order is made. I see that Clause 91(1) refers to,

“grounds on which court may order possession … if it considers it reasonable”.

It seems to me that if a university student, who is almost certainly over 18, goes AWOL and behaves extremely badly in university precincts but has a mother and three young siblings living in the house, the mother will have absolutely no control over the young man at university. She probably does not even have any financial control these days. The court would be certain to look at the hardship of the situation and this would be a circuit judge in the county court. I am not particularly keen on this addition to the powers of the court but I would find it difficult to believe that a court would act other than justly and with mercy in situations that would require it.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

Before the noble and learned Baroness sits down, does she accept that the research which I quoted suggests that the courts have perhaps not always been reasonable in their application of anti-social behaviour legislation and that lone mothers, in particular, have been evicted because of the behaviour of men in their household who they simply were unable to control?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

I understand the point and I would hope that there would be an appeal system so that at some stage this issue would come before the Court of Appeal, which would deal with it appropriately.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Monday 11th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, my name is added to this amendment. I would like to speak particularly about young people who have been trafficked into this country. I declare an interest as the co-chairman of the trafficking parliamentary group and a trustee of the Human Trafficking Foundation. The Refugee Council and the Children’s Society have highlighted this particular group of young people who come within Amendment 234. They are included in the young people to whom the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred but they form a very specific group of young people who have been trafficked into this country, are identified as having been slaves and are often put into care or accommodated by the local authority which arranges for them to go to school and live in England until they are 18. Some may be asylum seekers. The latter were referred to by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. However, some are not asylum seekers and the minute they turn 18 they become illegal immigrants under Schedule 3 to the relevant Act, and there is no one to protect them. If they remain in this country, they are particularly vulnerable. They have no status, no access to public funds and no housing. Some of them sleep on the streets and are dependent on soup kitchens. They are destitute. Others are at real risk of being sent back to the abusing situation in the country of origin from which they had escaped, having been trafficked here. Some of them are terrified at the prospect of going back because they may be retrafficked or may well be very ill-treated for having escaped the traffickers, so to go back to their country of origin, particularly when that is Nigeria, is extremely problematic.

We are in the extraordinary position of having identified these young people as victims of trafficking and having cared for them in this country where they were looked after and made welcome. However, the moment they turn 18, they are considered to be illegal immigrants and no one looks after them. I ask the Minister to look at this group of trafficked children, who probably number 100 or 200, who have been to school in this country. I have no idea what the actual number is but it is tiny. It is a pretty odd situation if we look after them and educate them but then leave them destitute the moment they turn 18.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett]

My Lords, I wish to speak briefly in support of the amendment, and I am very pleased that it has been tabled. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, have both talked about destitution. I was a member of the Parliamentary Inquiry into Asylum Support for Children and Young People. That was a slightly wider group than that on which this amendment is focused, but the point is the same. We said that:

“Although the inquiry’s focus was on those in receipt of asylum support, the panel was shocked to hear of instances where children were left destitute and homeless, entirely without institutional support and forced to rely on food parcels or charitable donations. Evidence received by the inquiry cited counts where children made up between 13-20% of the local destitute population”.

I find it shameful that we have anyone in the population who is destitute in a society as rich as ours. It is particularly shaming that people who have come to this country to seek refuge should be destitute, and that children should be destitute.

Perhaps I may reinforce what the noble Earl said by referring to a case study which has been provided by the Refugee Children’s Consortium. It states:

“Case study: Matthew—a young person from Iran. Matthew is a torture survivor who came to the UK from Iran when he was aged 17. He was refused asylum and wanted to appeal but his solicitor did not want to support his appeal so he went to court unrepresented. His appeal was rejected and children’s services stopped his support. He was made homeless for one year. He was seeing a psychologist while being supported by children’s services but once the support was cut off, the counselling stopped as well. While homeless Matthew’s health deteriorated”—

is that surprising?

“He couldn’t sleep at night. His hair was falling out. He experienced a lot of violence when he was sleeping on the streets. Sometimes he was able to work for his friend in exchange for accommodation. He was desperate to stay in the UK because he feared for his life if he were to return to Iran. With help from The Children’s Society he was able to get a new solicitor and put in a fresh claim”.

This really should not happen.

I was also involved in the launch of a report from Freedom From Torture about the poverty experienced by torture survivors. One of the strong messages in that report was how poverty undermines the rehabilitation of torture survivors. This is dreadful. Torture survivors, who are psychologically scarred, then have to go through further ordeals when they get to this country. I hope very much that the Minister will be able to say something rather more positive in response to this amendment than perhaps was the response to the previous amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Nash.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Lister of Burtersett and Baroness Butler-Sloss

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, I intended to put my name to this amendment but failed to do so. I have supported each of the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and I strongly support this one. He has set out extremely effectively, supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, nearly everything that needs to be said and I do not propose to say very much.

I wish to pick up on what the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said about this being an issue of child protection, among other matters. As I said earlier this week, very often when children go missing from local authority care, the local authorities do not know that they are trafficked children. Therefore, no one is identifying them and looking for them with the special care that is required for this small group of children. They are treated as ordinary missing children who will probably come back. This is a very serious child protection issue.

The other point made by the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is so important that I shall repeat it. There is a real need for one constant person to take an interest in the child, meet the child early on, offer a mobile phone number, be at the end of a telephone and be able to answer the questions that a child with very limited or no English will need to ask someone who can be there. One of the sadnesses highlighted at the Still at Risk event that I was glad to attend yesterday is that these children have multiple social workers. We all know the underresourcing and overwork of social workers, so can they give a special degree of care to a foreign trafficked child who is not even under a care order? Consequently, they have to cope with no one person in their life.

What the noble Lord, Lord McColl, is suggesting in this amendment is crucial. We are failing a small number of grievously disadvantaged foreign children. We are talking about hundreds, not thousands. There was a particularly worrying case in Kent, where children who had been trafficked into Kent were being trafficked out by the same traffickers. Fortunately, Kent Police got hold of this, but if there had been a guardian, that guardian would have kept in touch with the child, with any luck, and would probably have been able to prevent it as they would be the one person who would know where the child was and, in any event, would be in touch with the suitable authorities to try to deal with it.

I have been talking to Barnardo’s about whether it would be prepared to offer some sort of service. The most important point that it makes is that there has to be a sufficient legal status because the majority of social services and, indeed, the NHS, talk about the confidentiality of teenage children and so on, so they will not necessarily tell somebody coming in what is going on. If the person has legal status, people have to open their records. In the absence of that sufficient legal status, a wonderful organisation, such as Barnardo’s, the NSPCC, the Children’s Society and so on, would not be able to offer that service, even if it were to be financially supported to do it.

The noble Lord, Lord McColl, has raised a very important issue. He and I were, if I may put it rather bluntly, fobbed off by the Government in 2011 and 2012 on the basis that there would be this report, and nothing is happening now. Children are going missing and are suffering the trauma of trying to cope with inadequate English through the multiplicity of agencies with which they have to deal. Quite simply, it is unjust. It is not good enough, and we as a country should be rather ashamed of ourselves.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, made a very powerful case and referred to the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report on its inquiry into unaccompanied children. I want to underline that because we took evidence from people in Scotland with experience of the guardianship system there, and I was very impressed by what we were told. We have clear evidence there of how it can work and can support the kind of children whom we have been hearing from. I was not around when the noble Lord first raised this issue, and it is very sad that there has been this long delay. I hope that this House can now do something to rectify that situation.