Child Sex Abuse Inquiry

Debate between Lord Bates and Baroness Newlove

Monday 15th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

Part of the issue here is that because of a series of announcements and revelations which brought about huge concern, there was a desire to move very quickly to establish the inquiry. The important thing, we recognise now, is to put survivors’ groups, and the confidence of those groups, at the heart of this, which is the reason the Home Secretary has met survivors’ groups three times—on 3, 20 and 25 November—and indeed is meeting them today.

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, while we are discussing who is to be the chairperson for this inquiry—it is important that we get the right person—my concern is to support the victims in the mean time. What assurances can the Minister give about the support that will be provided, because it is not right through the bureaucratic processes to ask these victims what has gone on in their lives while they are being hit by barriers and not being given the right support and recognition of what they have gone through?

[Lord Bates]

My noble friend is absolutely right. I also pay tribute to her work as the Victims’ Commissioner, which she carries out assiduously. Of course more needs to be done to help the victims. We are consulting with the Department of Health to find out what additional help we can provide, and in the interim we will be announcing a further package of £2 million of support for victims’ groups in the ongoing discussions.

Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Lord Bates and Baroness Newlove

Monday 8th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Newlove (Con)]

My Lords, I ask the Minister to listen to some of the views in your Lordships’ House in respect of the support for victims. As the Victims’ Commissioner for England and Wales, I welcome much of what is in the Bill and, as I mentioned at Second Reading, I look forward to working with the anti-slavery commissioner at an early stage to ensure consistent, co-ordinated and high-quality support for victims of trafficking. It seems that as it stands, the Bill considers the needs of victims to be mainly in securing successful prosecutions of the perpetrators. While I want to see the guilty convicted and punished, I want the Bill to go further for victims of trafficking by helping to ensure that they are helped to recover and supported in leading fulfilling and healthy lives.

We in your Lordships’ House have all been shocked to learn about the experiences of some of the victims of trafficking. We have heard about the physical, sexual and emotional abuse and about almost unimaginable cruelty, so we should understand that helping victims to recover cannot be achieved in a matter of weeks or months. It may take a number of years, or indeed a lifetime. Yet I have seen for myself that with the right support, victims can be helped on to a recovery journey and to get on as best they can. We must not stop the support for victims of trafficking when a court case is over; we must consider them as a traumatised human being, not simply as a means to secure a conviction. That is why I want to work with the anti-slavery commissioner; I want to ensure that the victims of these terrible crimes can access good-quality services for as long as they need them.

I had a very helpful meeting with my noble friend the Minister last week to discuss these issues and I would welcome meeting the anti-slavery commissioner soon. We considered a number of options which may come under the duty to co-operate in the Bill. We could have a memorandum of understanding to make sure that there is nothing specific between the victims’ commissioner and the anti-slavery commissioner. We could specify in more detail how the commissioners could work together regarding the commissioning and quality of services, and the provision of services for victims. We could also have the two commissioners co-operating by agreeing in letters to work together to make sure that we support the services of victims.

What matters to me most is not how this co-operation is achieved but that it is achieved. As victims’ commissioner, I want all victims to have a voice and for them to be helped to recover from their ordeal. The quality and duration of the help they need should be determined by their needs and not by the type of crime they have suffered. The criminal justice system should expect to fit around the victim instead of the victim fitting around the system, as is the case today. As I said at Second Reading, I look forward to meeting the anti-slavery commissioner to consider some of these options, but I ask the Minister to look at how the support of victims is going to be carried forward. We need this Bill and we welcome it but as victims’ commissioner I meet many victims and we have to support them through the lifetime of their journey to make them better people and to give them healthier lifestyles.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to be able to respond to this extraordinarily high-quality debate. It is a large group of 26 amendments and there have been 15 excellent speeches. In the time permitted it will perhaps not be possible to go into every detail but I assure noble Lords we will—as we have done throughout—pay considerable attention to all the points made very powerfully and eloquently during this debate and seek to respond to them as we go through the remaining stages of the legislation in your Lordships’ House.

I will try to direct as many of my remarks as possible to addressing the many specific points that were made. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, began in good style by asking me to reflect on the previous legislation which had just secured its passage through your Lordships’ House, and invited me to think about whether we ought to be as accommodating of amendments. I want to put on record that the Government continue to amend and refine this piece of legislation in the light of our own experience and consultations but also in the light of the comments made and the concerns expressed by Members of your Lordships’ House and, indeed, the other place. As evidence of that I was just calculating that there are 16 government amendments in the Marshalled List today and there will be many more to come.

We have seen the Bill strengthened to include child trafficking advocates. There have been changes with regard to the victim’s personal circumstances, including their age. There is a statutory defence—which was a major change—and reparation orders to ensure that victims are actually compensated. Identification of victims has become part of the commissioner’s remit and the commissioner’s independence has been put in the Bill. We have had a new clause on supply chains, which was introduced in the other place. We have had a requirement on child trafficking advocates to act in the best interests of the child. We have introduced a statutory defence for victims. We have introduced an amendment so that a lack of consent is not required; it applies to all children. I do not mean to be tedious and to test the patience of your Lordships’ House but I put on record that the Government have engaged with people across the House, recognising that this is a landmark—or démarche as my noble friend Lord Deben put it—piece of legislation. We all want to make sure that we get it absolutely right.

As the starting point of an excellent contribution, the noble Lord, Lord Warner, referred to pre-legislation scrutiny in refining this legislation. It identified four elements—prevent, protect, prosecute and partnership. It is no coincidence that when the modern day slavery document was produced just before Committee in this place we identified four elements—prevent, protect, pursue and prepare. They broadly followed that line of alliteration highlighted in the previous Bill and in the previous consideration of this, so that is part of what we are trying to do.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel, said that he was very concerned about redaction, essentially. That is a key concern that a number of noble Lords have referred to. He wondered how this fitted in with other commissioners and whether it was going to be singled out and limit the effectiveness of the designated Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner. I draw noble Lords’ attention to Clause 41(6)(a), (b) and (c). That is not simply carte blanche to say that matters can be redacted from the report that may lead people out there to question its independence and authority. There are very specific instances that would be given where, for example, something,

“would be against the interests of national security, … might jeopardise the safety of any person in England and Wales, or … might prejudice the investigation or prosecution of an offence under the law of England and Wales”.

When I say England and Wales, I mean simply that the Bill goes on to reference Scotland and Northern Ireland after that.

I know that my noble friend Lady Hamwee asked whether this was required under the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation provision. That is the case; the Secretary of State must be satisfied that it will not prejudice criminal proceedings. Then there is the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. If the Secretary of State thinks the content is undesirable for reasons of national security or might jeopardise individual safety, then information can be redacted under those very narrow and specific circumstances. It was actually with regard to the latter case that we sought to draw the wording for this part of the Bill from the latest piece of legislation that we had. It has very specific elements in it.

With regard to the location of the commissioner, I am aware of the view that he should perhaps sit outside the Home Office; we had that debate, and a number of noble Lords said that. Physically, he sits outside the Home Office in Globe House, with the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration. It was interesting to talk to Kevin Hyland last week. We went through the comments that had been made in Committee on Wednesday. He expressed the view that being attached to the Home Office, rather than standing alone, helped his case. He coined a phrase to me, which he gave me permission to use, that if he were on his own it would be a bit like being a corner shop trying to take on Tesco, although I suggested that we use the word “Sainsbury’s” just in case that was not appropriate. The point is that he would be a small, independent operator seeking to battle in the marketplace with a major government department. The fact that he carries the weight behind him of one of the major offices of state seems to him to help rather than hinder his case.

Those sentiments were backed up by the conversation that Kevin Hyland had with the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, at the meeting this morning of the European Commission, where he seemed to reiterate that he felt that he was given a degree of independence to operate as he saw fit. Linking back to the conversation we had on Wednesday in Committee, he also made the point that he felt he had freedom to appoint from outside the pool of the Home Office. I have since sought clarification of that and that is the case. I can inform your Lordships’ House that he is at liberty and not restricted to drawing from the Home Office. He might draw from there some of his more junior roles, but the request was that the senior roles should be ones that he appoints and that they should be people who he wants to head up particular elements. Therefore, I was heartened that some of the appointments he was discussing were at a senior level but from outside.