Modern Slavery Act: Independent Review

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Stephanie Peacock

Wednesday 19th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the independent review of the Modern Slavery Act.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main. I thank the secretariat of our inquiry, who were superb. I want to make a brief comment about the importance of this topic to me—it is terrific that so many Members want to intervene or make a speech, because that shows a growing interest in the issue in the House of Commons, which is good.

Two things over my parliamentary lifetime have knocked me sideways: one has been the extent of hunger and destitution in my constituency; the other was the beginning of the work on modern slavery. I find it impossible to describe the horrors that people try to convey to us about the experience of being enslaved in this country, in this year and at this time. That is partly because one does not want to break down speaking in this debate. I know everyone will bear in mind the background of those individuals.

My Pauline conversion came when I was sent off and told to do a press conference for the Centre for Social Justice report on modern slavery, “It Happens Here”. I was horrified and amazed by the information—the data and case studies—that the CSJ brought together. There was a huge gathering of organisations for the launch of the report. We agreed at that meeting that we should lobby hard for a modern slavery Act. It was after a summer’s work of lobbying that the then Home Secretary, now Prime Minister, decided we would have a Bill. She thought we should have a scoping exercise about what that Bill should contain. She then used her influence to allow us to have a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider the draft Bill. We then had a Bill.

For all that we now want to move on from the legislation, that initiative was a real success for the Prime Minister. This was the first modern slavery Act in the world. It included supply chains, although the measures to act on them were pretty feeble. However, once something is in legislation, the requirements can always be pushed up. There was also some help for victims, and I am sure many Members will talk about the adequacies.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Does he welcome the work of Northern College in Barnsley, which has set up the “Free Thinking” programme, the first of its kind to provide education opportunities specifically for survivors of modern slavery? Does he agree that the Government should look at ways in which we can roll that out across the country?

[Frank Field]

I do indeed. I had the real pleasure of meeting, with my hon. Friend, a delegation that came down from the college, and I saw the work it is doing. Clearly, if we are to get a breakthrough on the lack of knowledge about what is happening in this country, courses like that will and should play a crucial part. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 signified a breakthrough.

Affordable Credit for People on Low Incomes

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Stephanie Peacock

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Ind)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the provision of affordable credit for people on low incomes.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David, although I hope it will be not just a pleasant time, but a very productive one. We are anxious to leave plenty of time for the Minister to reply because we want, and hope, to make progress with the debate. I address him as an hon. Friend, because in this debate I am drawing information from Feeding Britain, a charity that he, I and other MPs from different parties set up. This debate on the provision of affordable credit for people on low incomes draws on the experiences of groups around the country that are part of the Feeding Britain network. I thank those involved in the network, whose information I draw upon, but particularly the parents and grandparents who have provided information for this debate.

As I gave him much of the information beforehand, the Minister knows that there is far too much to cite in this debate from people in the Feeding Britain network who want to have their say. I will instead focus on an everyday story of Provident. I do not know whether it worries about Salisbury, but Provident is putting out these leaflets in the Wirral, personally addressed, and on the front are pictures of a little girl and the words, “The look on her face”, “Decorating grandad” and “Visiting loved ones”, all playing on the feeling of exclusion that many poor people feel all the time, but especially at Christmas.

Behind those leaflets there is a carefully targeted business plan, because certainly Provident stepped up its activities with the beginnings of the roll-out of universal credit. Officers of Provident were knocking on doors with application forms in one hand and fistfuls of money in the other, asking whether people wanted to sign up or needed a loan, knowing that while we still have difficulties with universal credit today, we certainly had mega-difficulties when it was first rolled out in Birkenhead.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Particularly with people facing problems such as universal credit, does he share my concern that a growing number of people—I think it has gone up by 300,000 in the last year—rely on credit to pay for everyday essentials? That is hugely unsustainable, and we need to look at mixed alternatives.

[Frank Field]

Indeed; we will try to draw the Minister on that. Part of the leaflet concerns short-term loans, saying that the APR is 535.3%; I hope Members of Parliament know what APR—annual percentage rate—is. I will not press the question, but the Minister has one degree from Oxford and one from Cambridge, so I wonder, if we were looking at a £300 loan and had to pay it back within three months, what the loan would cost and what the rate of interest would be. I am not going to pause; I will give the answers. It is one of those very easy quiz games, but a horror quiz game, because if the repayment is over three months, Provident wants £429 back at an annual interest rate equivalent to 1,557.7%. That is just one example. Constituents borrowing £350 and paying it back over 12 months have to pay back £655.20.

Cost of School Uniforms

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Stephanie Peacock

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Frank Field]

It is very good giving way, because these are points that I would have made otherwise. I merely underscore the point my hon. Friend has just made about how it may not be a one-off set of costs but an increasing set of costs through the year. Of course, if someone has young lads, who are all too often separated from their uniform and their games kit, the costs mount tremendously.

In preparing for this debate, we had a Feeding Birkenhead meeting a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about this debate. There were 22 mothers in the room who support Feeding Birkenhead. Practically all of them were either grandparents or parents. They all said, “We can actually give you examples,” and all of them have given me examples. There have been examples on Facebook—the House of Commons Facebook for these matters has got a huge number of responses from parents. I said that, during this debate, I would do what Ernest Bevin did when he appeared before the wages committee for dockers, where he laid out how much food the dockers would get from their wages and asked the independent panel if it thought that was adequate. One mother listed the cost of the uniform—I will hold the document up so the camera can see it. I will give it to the Minister afterwards—I do not expect him to read it now, but I jolly well hope it is going into the camera.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this important debate. I, too, have had a number of examples from across my constituency. A school uniform often costs in excess of £120 in Barnsley East. Does he agree—I know he does—that that is totally unacceptable? We need to look at ways to bring down the costs. Perhaps one way to do so is for governing bodies and local authorities to use their power to bulk buy.

[Frank Field]

All these ideas are here for the Minister to pick up and run with, particularly given that he has the Prime Minister’s support on this issue.

Some of the parents who wrote to me from Birkenhead and beyond have bills that are £300-plus for a school uniform, and they also face the devastating cost of games kits. I hold up another document from a mother, listing a games kit. When my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) saw it, she jumped and said, “Look at that—emblems are being put on the items, which adds enormously to the cost.” That parent—a young woman—has a child in school who has to have two different games kit cases to bring the stuff to school.