Queen’s Speech

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I shall say a little about the modern slavery Bill and the Serious Crime Bill and refer briefly to the Government’s drug policy reviews.

I welcome the modern slavery Bill and applaud the commitment and hard work of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss and Frank Field in the other place in convincing the Government to introduce the Bill, and indeed I congratulate the Government on recognising the importance of the issues raised. I understood when we debated the need for independent legal guardians for all trafficked children, in the context of the Immigration Act, that the Government would be reviewing the need for guardians in the context of this Bill. I understand that the Government are running trials, but can the Minister explain whether these trials will provide guardians only for children identified as having been trafficked? If so, that will only scratch the surface of the problem, as I am sure he recognises.

The Minister will know that trafficked children are generally not recognised as such until they have been through the criminal justice system—indeed, often not until they become adults. In the mean time, many become embroiled in immigration and criminal proceedings due to the actions of others. If guardians are available only to the minority of trafficked children who are recognised as trafficked from the start, the provision will exclude the great majority. The inclusive provision of guardians for all unaccompanied children assessed as needing them would include those children who are vulnerable for a variety of reasons, including those who are not immediately recognised as having been trafficked when they arrive in the country.

Of course, children fleeing war and persecution, as well as those who are victims of trafficking, cannot cope alone with the complex legal and social systems that they face on arrival. They probably do not have the language, and do not have anyone about—it is a very frightening situation for all of them. All these children are likely to suffer mental health problems and should be regarded as vulnerable. The UNCRC has made clear the responsibility of signatory states to provide guardians for unaccompanied and separated children, not specifically trafficked ones. I hope that the Minister can assure the House that the modern slavery Bill will provide for independent legal guardians with statutory powers to be allocated to all separated migrant children.

The Children’s Society has provided a most helpful briefing raising a further point. Can the Minister give us an assurance that the Bill will create a specific offence of child trafficking and exploitation, spelling out the most common forms of these crimes? I believe that these are just not familiar to a lot of the professionals who will be involved in these cases.

Turning to the Serious Crime Bill, I applaud the Government’s decision to clarify the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to make explicit that emotional cruelty which is likely to cause psychological harm to a child is an offence. This recognition of emotional cruelty is long overdue and very important. In the past, a physical assault on a child has rightly been recognised and action taken, but the sad reality is that long-term emotional neglect or cruelty, often in fact by mothers, can be even more damaging to a child’s mental health. The UK has been one of the only countries in the world failing to recognise emotional neglect as a crime.

However, recourse to the law for emotional or physical abuse should of course be the last resort. The Children’s Society rightly points to the need for preventive measures, including support in developing parenting skills and better interventions with parents with drug or alcohol problems. As the Minister knows, this is an issue close to my heart. If a parent is found to have a drug addiction or other mental health problem, treatment must be the right answer, not a resort to the law. While I welcome the new proposals, I am very concerned that people who are addicts are then subject to criminal action not only for the addiction but also for this other aspect of their lives.

It is important to welcome the Government’s review of international drug policy developments and the review of policy in relation to new psychoactive substances. Neither of these two pieces of work is complete, so I understand that there is nothing on those issues in the Queen’s Speech. However, I am sure that the Government are undertaking the reviews for a purpose, and I hope that the Minister can give the House some hope that before the election they will introduce sensible evidence-based reforms that would provide a safer world for our children.