EU Action Plan Against Migrant Smuggling (EUC Report)

Baroness Suttie Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow two such distinguished speakers. This debate also provides me with a second opportunity to say what an excellent chair of our committee the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, has been. Today really is his final debate in his role as chairman, and I think all noble Lords would agree that his speech today was a thought-provoking and powerful way to finish in that role.

We are facing the movement of people on an unprecedented scale. The reasons are multiple and complex, including civil war, population growth and economic and environmental pressures. We have also witnessed the emergence of a new kind of ruthless people smuggler. These people smugglers now use smart technology to relay information through social media on the best routes into Europe and the current price lists for the various routes available. There are people so desperate to come to Europe that they are willing to pay several thousand dollars to risk their lives and those of their families, travelling in rubber dinghies across the Mediterranean or in containers that are unfit for human transportation.

The report on Operation Sophia concentrates on the central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy. At the time of drafting the report, the Turkish deal was in the process of being agreed. We asked several witnesses whether they thought there would be a resulting shift from the eastern Turkish route to the central Mediterranean one if the Turkish deal was successfully concluded. The predictions that this would happen have proved tragically accurate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, said earlier, over 2,500 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean this year already. The middle route is the longest and most dangerous, particularly if carried out in a rubber dinghy.

As the report states, we believe that Operation Sophia is carrying out a successful role in providing a search and rescue function, but is doing little to destroy the people-smugglers’ business model—at times, indeed, quite the reverse. The lack of a stable regime in Libya is further hampering the situation and makes it exceptionally difficult for international organisations to control and monitor the situation on the ground.

We need to be able to differentiate more clearly between refugees and economic migrants, as the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, has said, although I accept that there is a lot of grey space between the two: abuse by people smugglers of young and vulnerable migrants, particularly women and children, often leads one to become the other. According to the United Nations, over 15 million people could move from the desertified areas of sub-Saharan Africa towards north Africa and Europe by 2020. Missions such as Operation Sophia are just too small to be genuinely effective in dealing with the scale of people movement we are facing. We need to have a comprehensive and overarching strategy that tackles issues such as legally recognised official routes, provides even greater support for reception centres and delivers an ambitious economic and investment plan to provide support for the countries in the MENA region. We need to find new and effective ways to penalise the people smugglers, perhaps even by using the mechanisms of the International Criminal Court. We also need to be creative and ambitious in coming up with long-term solutions to the economic and environmental problems that are forcing so many people to travel northwards from sub-Saharan Africa.

In the last year I have been working once a month on a project in Jordan, assisting with the political reform programme there. I refer noble Lords to the register of members’ interests. Last month I spent a day with UNHCR visiting refugees in Amman. Jordan currently has over 600,000 Syrian refugees registered with UNHCR, and is having to cope with over 1.5 million Syrian refugees in total. Although the media have, understandably, mainly concentrated on the camps, over 80% of the refugees in Jordan are living in towns and cities in rented accommodation, attics and basements and wherever basic accommodation can be found. The stories of two families I met on that day stick in my mind.

The first was a Syrian family living in a small flat in Ashrafiya in central Amman. Before the conflict, Raslan, a father of five, had been working as an engineer for a Canadian oil company in Syria. He had previously been earning $2,000 dollars a month. Their home town had been blown to pieces and is now controlled half by ISIL and half by the Syrian Government. He managed to flee legally to Jordan with his passport, and the majority of his family then followed. Their accommodation was basic but damp, and the whole family were sleeping in one room. They had a living room with a simple kitchen and bathroom. The UNHCR field officer who was with me that day said it was one of the better examples of refugee accommodation that she had seen. During the interview, Raslan emotionally showed us a school photograph of a young boy. He was their eldest son, whom they had not seen for four years as he was currently fighting with the Syrian Government army and had been forced to stay on at the end of his conscription. Their middle son had not received any education whatever since arriving from Syria two years earlier because all the local schools were full. It was clear that his family wanted to return to Syria as soon as it was safe to do so.

The second refugee family we met was a Sudanese family living in very primitive accommodation. Their kitchen was a gas camping stove on two breeze blocks and the toilet was a hole in the ground. The husband had fled by plane to Jordan on a medical visa after two of his brothers had been murdered in Darfur. He was suffering from migraines and blackouts and, being unable to work, had accumulated considerable debts, mostly in rent arrears. His wife was due to give birth to their second child that day. Their first child was quite badly malnourished, as they were trying to survive on one meal a day of bread, water and occasional vegetables. I am pleased to say that I have since been told by UNHCR that this family will be resettled in the United States.

I share those two stories with your Lordships because, in this fevered atmosphere of headlines in the media saying that hundreds of thousands of migrants are going to flood our shores, I believe it is our human duty to remember that behind each of these statistics lies a personal and often tragic story.

On the other side of 23 June, I sincerely hope that the British Government can again help to take the lead on these issues within the EU and in the international community. The London donors conference was a positive initiative, but less than half the money pledged has actually arrived. Despite the current populist rhetoric to the contrary, this is a challenge to which there are no quick-fix solutions, and we in Britain cannot solve the migrant crisis on our own. We will have to work with our European partners, as well as with the wider international community, to find long-term solutions, whatever the outcome of the EU referendum.

Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Suttie Excerpts

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to add my thanks to my noble friend the Minister for the spirit of openness and compromise with which he has engaged with this Bill, not least on this issue regarding the future role of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. The announcement in annexe 2 in my noble friend’s letter this week—that the Government intend to hold a public consultation on the role of the GLA—is particularly welcome and in some ways diminishes the need for many of the elements contained in this Amendment 92.

I think that we are all in agreement in this House that the GLA has and will continue to play an extremely important role in combating exploitation, but there are very powerful arguments that its remit should be widened to include the construction, hospitality, cleaning and care sectors, where migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to exploitation, modern slavery or human trafficking. There has, however, been understandable concern expressed about placing additional demands and burdens on the GLA, given its finite resources. Can the Minister confirm that the provision of resources will form part of the consultation process on the GLA that he has announced?

Although I support much of the sentiment behind Amendment 92, I note that my noble friend the Minister sets out in annexe 2 that he does not believe that an enabling power is the best way to proceed, and that indeed primary legislation would still be required to extend the remit of the GLA. Perhaps he can expand a little on this point during his response to the amendment.

Finally, I press my noble friend a little more on the timetabling of this public consultation on the GLA. He states in annexe 2 that the,

“work will start immediately and it will be published early in the next Parliament”.

Given the cross-party support for this Bill, as so many other noble Lords have just said, will my noble friend indicate whether he would consider setting down a more precise timetable for the consultation on the face of the Bill?

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

I congratulate the right reverend Prelate on having introduced the amendment so well, in his characteristic way. Several points occurred to me as particularly important. First, in effect, whatever the intention, to introduce legislation in sensitive and important areas like this and not to properly resource it can be perceived as cynical. It can be seen as a greater desire among legislators to polish their consciences in public without really facing up to what needs to be done. Facing the issue of properly resourcing enlightened legislation is crucial. Far too often, this has not happened.

The second point, which is very important, is education, which the right reverend Prelate picked up and linked rather well into his proposal. I am not a lawyer but, in my perception, law works best when it is in the context of public understanding about why it is necessary—not theoretically but practically available—for those whom it is intended to protect. Facing up to that issue in the amendment is also vital. I hope that the Minister, who has been a model across the House of how a Minister can handle a Bill of this kind, will listen to the arguments and find some way in which to meet them.

Modern Slavery Bill

Baroness Suttie Excerpts

Monday 17th November 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of Cradley, who I know has done so much on this Bill. I am also greatly looking forward to hearing the maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, who is someone I have known for many years. We were in the European Parliament at the same time.

Like so many of the previous speakers, I greatly welcome the Bill. It is an opportunity to protect some of the most vulnerable in society and to remove practices that really should have no place in 21st-century Britain. It is a highly complex subject which crosses over into immigration policy, employment law, trade and economic policy and, in the sense that so many of the issues arise from the source countries in the first instance, international development and foreign policy.

The process of pre-legislative scrutiny and the considerable number of concessions made on Report in the House of Commons are also greatly to be welcomed and in particular the concessions made on the supply chain. But it is extremely important to seize this opportunity to ensure that the Bill is exemplary and as world class as possible and where necessary to enable further progress as circumstances change in the future. We should remember that this is an excellent start, but it is only the beginning of a process in eradicating these appalling crimes.

My noble friend Lady Hamwee, as the lead spokesperson from the Liberal Democrat Benches, will cover the Bill in some detail in her speech and my noble friend Lady Doocey will concentrate on issues of child exploitation in her speech, an area in which she has a considerable amount of expertise. I shall limit myself to three areas of the Bill, where I believe that further clarification, probing and possibly further changes would be welcome—the remit of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, issues surrounding the definition of exploitation, and issues of the accountability and independence of the Anti-slavery Commissioner.

Unlike many noble Lords who have spoken, I am not an expert on this subject. My personal interest stems from an interest and involvement in issues of homelessness and the spread of infectious diseases such as TB, particularly in London. It comes also from a concern for some migrant workers who have found themselves trapped in a spiral of exploitation that is very hard to escape.

I think particularly of a young Bulgarian homeless man whom I got to know earlier this year. One day he told me that he was extremely pleased to have been offered work on a building site in south London. He was especially pleased that accommodation was also being provided. I accept that it is perfectly possible that everything has worked out well for him, and that he has employment and accommodation now, but I would like reassurance that this Bill will result in it becoming much harder in future for someone like this young homeless Bulgarian man to be exploited by an unscrupulous gangmaster.

An excellent report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation of June this year lists some truly horrific examples of forced labour and exploitation that should have no place in 21st-century Britain. The wages of some of these exploited workers are often tied to their living in pretty appalling, cramped accommodation, resulting in a very real risk of an infectious disease such as TB. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority is extremely highly regarded by the organisations to which we have had the opportunity to speak and may already be stretched to full capacity on its current resources. But it is worth exploring whether its remit can in some way be extended also to cover the construction, catering and hospitality industries where we know that risks of labour exploitation exist.

The second area where I hope that we can probe more deeply is in the definition of exploitation and whether there is a case for a separate offence of exploitation. I would like to seek reassurance that the current definitions do not accidentally result in loopholes.

My final point is about the independence and accountability of the Anti-slavery Commissioner. I would like us to explore in Committee whether there should be an annual report to Parliament.

As I said in my opening remarks, this is a good and welcome Bill, but we need to seize the opportunity to ensure that it is a truly world-class piece of legislation.

European Arrest Warrant

Baroness Suttie Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

My Lords, I am sure that the representatives of the Spanish Government, with whom we are negotiating bilaterally, will of course have noted the noble Lord’s comments carefully.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree with Sir Hugh Orde, the president of ACPO, when he said that the European arrest warrant,

“gives us a stronger, more effective means of arresting dangerous criminals across borders and thus keeping our communities safe at home—it is not an instrument which we can afford to lose”?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I agree with ACPO in respect of this and of course the European affairs committee, the security services and the law enforcement services, whose views the Government have listened to and acted upon.