Modern Slavery Bill

Debate between Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville and Lord Kerr of Kinlochard

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

My Lords, it is no coincidence that I should be following my noble friend Lady Hanham in so far as she was in office in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the whole of the period in which I was the Member of Parliament next door for the Cities of London and Westminster. The experiences that she had in the Royal Borough were totally matched by the experiences I had as the local Member. The frequency with which cases came up is something which I remember vividly from that period and I have seen my fair share of television films about this issue and listened to radio programmes, such as those cited a moment ago.

I do not propose to go over the ground which has been gone over by others. I am delighted to see the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, in his place, not least because of his notable speeches on this subject in Committee. It was he who drew attention to the fact that the issue was settled in the Commons committee by the chairman of the committee taking a vote to leave the Bill as it was. A more significant confession appeared in a speech made in Committee on 10 December by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, who sadly cannot be here tonight. She referred to the fact that the vote was tied in the Public Bill Committee, losing only to the chair, and then the Conservative Member of Parliament and former Deputy Chief Whip John Randall explained at Report why he would vote for a Labour amendment to protect domestic workers. He said that there had been too many victims for him to be able to say that it was a matter for another day. I say that simply to indicate that in another place the issue was very closely divided on and therefore that the Government have only a narrow margin to defend their position.

I realise that Her Majesty’s Government are pressed for time. However, on the basis of my experience, I find it difficult to believe that any Government could have expected to take this Bill through Parliament without this issue coming up. The fact that we are now out of time reflects backwards on to how much preparation there was in terms of time for this to occur. I am sorry that the Minister has been saddled with the task of defending the Government’s position at this stage in the Bill.

I was patently impressed by the speech of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, but this does not protect the Government from the need to produce a more decisive defence for the period before the promised review is completed. I very much hope that my noble friend can be convincing in explaining the validity of the Government’s interim posture on this issue. So far as my own vote is concerned, much hangs on what he says in his speech to wind up this debate.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

I would like to comment very briefly on the speeches of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson. I do so cautiously. Anybody who questions the argument advanced by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, should proceed cautiously like Agag. I also admit that I have no particular expertise in the area of domestic slavery—except that I am married.

The argument that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, made seems to me to be a very encouraging one. Developments are taking place. I was particularly encouraged to hear about the work being done with and for the Filipino community. That seems to me very good news. It may reduce the scale of the problem we are talking about; it may partially mitigate the problem; but it will not eliminate the problem. The review that the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, talked about is obviously very important, and nobody who supports the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, will be against the review. They are not alternatives. It seems to me that this amendment cannot do harm; it must do good. I do not know how much good it will do and the noble Lord, Lord Horam, may be completely correct that it will do very little good, because so many of these poor people will be unaware of their rights and, unless there is a path of enforcement, not much will change—but no harm will have been done and some good must, by definition, be done. So I very much hope that the amendment will be pressed to a vote.