Queen’s Speech

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

My Lords, given the time constraints, I want to comment on just one aspect of the gracious Speech and to ask one or two questions. The aspect on which I want to comment is the provision, which I am sure we all welcome, for a Bill to strengthen the powers to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking. This is an opportunity not only for Members of all sides of this House but for both Houses to come together in an uncontentious but determined way.

My questions relate to the fact that this criminal activity is of the second order worldwide after drug trading. Estimates put the global human trafficking business at $150 billion a year. The European Union estimates that 26.9 million people are traded annually and that 880,000 work in slave labour conditions in western Europe. If those facts and the cash problems associated with human trafficking are to be believed, is not this Bill lacking ambition?

The proposal in the gracious Speech is to bring about measures to amalgamate existing measures and then to appoint an anti-slavery commissioner, as the notes indicate. However, is that really what is needed in the light of the scale of global human trafficking, the devastating stories of human lives around the globe taken and disrupted, the sex trade on the back of that, the abuse of young people at major international sporting events, and the way in which certain countries seek to hide their human rights duties and responsibilities behind commercial priorities or even religious approaches? Is a Bill that simply amalgamates existing provisions adequate?

I wonder whether, in their response, the Government might consider not rushing this legislation through what will be a partial year in this House but, rather, reflecting on the fact that, when this Parliament last seriously took through legislation on slavery more than 200 years ago, it was a 40-year journey. I am not suggesting that we need 40 years in which to bring to a conclusion this horrendous and ugly global trade, but I am not convinced that the normal processes of time, nor this small Bill, will be measured and appropriate or do what is necessary for the scale of the issues involved. Is it not right that, outside the provisions of the Bill at whatever point it is published, we should debate the issues of modern slavery, human trafficking, global supply chains, the mechanisms for legal checking and the processes through courts, and that we should ask hard questions of both DfID and its resources invested in international law and the Foreign Office concerning the extent to which Britain is serious about dealing with the global supply trade systems and the legal complexities that keep this trade ever growing and ever more complex?

I contend that the provisions of the existing Bill are welcome. They will not divide this House—we will agree almost unanimously. It may be possible to move this legislation through almost too easily and too quickly, but I suggest that if we do that we may well lose the weight and substance of this issue facing the Government. We may not deal with it with the dignity required for the women, in particular, who are trafficked and all those in slavery, and we may lose the opportunity to be genuinely heroic. I urge the Government to think about that and possibly to take this issue forward into the next manifesto—and I look to the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats to do the same—so as to make a commitment on it beyond this small Bill.