Modern Slavery Bill

Lord Quirk Excerpts

Monday 1st December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, a focus on the victims is absolutely right. At this stage, though, I want to make a point that was made by others at Second Reading: we must be careful to avoid detracting from the concept of survival. I am trying to keep in mind in the Bill the imperative of badging trafficked and enslaved persons as survivors, if this is at all possible, rather than as victims, which has a rather more negative connotation.

This Bill has raised quite extraordinary passions. I am finding it one of the most difficult that I have ever dealt with in my time as a Member of your Lordships’ House, in part because of the technicalities that we are having to look at, I hope your Lordships will forgive me if, in my comments on this amendment, I focus on the technicalities.

I am not really clear what this amendment would actually achieve—and that leaves me rather concerned. How are best interests to be assessed; what standard does one apply? We are all accustomed to the principle of best interests in relation to children because that is linked with the listed rights of the child in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; but maybe when he responds the noble Lord can explain what is engaged by the principle in the case of an adult trafficked or enslaved or exploited? For instance, would it mean an automatic referral to the national referral mechanism even if the adult does not want that? That would obviously go against the trafficked person’s right to decide for herself matters relating to her, assuming there is no lack of capacity. I am sure that it is not intended to be paternalistic, but the intention seems to be to make decisions for or on behalf of the victim in the name of best interests when she herself may disagree with what is in her best interests.

Without losing focus on the victim—or as I say, survivor—if there is a concern that particular parts of the Bill lack a victim focus, which I have to say I think is the case, that is where we should focus our changes rather than on an umbrella clause. Maybe by the end of this debate I will be clearer as to what it means, but at the moment I think that it is unclear and therefore possibly a problem.

[Lord Quirk (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to just draw attention to a very small point in this amendment, which on the whole I fully support. The amendment before us today is an amendment of an amendment in which proposed new subsection (1) ends, “slavery or trafficking”. In the amended amendment that we have in front of us this afternoon, proposed new subsection (2) ends with, “slavery, trafficking, or exploitation”. That is unchanged from the previous one. However, proposed new subsection (1) says, “slavery, trafficking and exploitation”. Surely that is not meant and this proposed new subsection (1) should end with the same wording as subsection (2)?

[Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)]

My Lords, this is an amendment which I have only just seen since I was out of the country until the early hours of this morning. I think that it is very interesting. This is an iconic Bill which has generated the most enormous amount of interest right across the country and internationally. Everybody, including myself, is being asked to speak on this Bill and it has got to be one of which the Government can be proud. I think that the Government should be proud of having the Bill as it is, but it could be better.

The criticism from NGOs, which may or may not be justified, is that this is a Bill for prosecution and conviction and not one for the welfare of those who are the victims of trafficking and slavery. If the Government accepted this amendment, they would have in the front of the Bill a clause that would put to rest what the NGOs are complaining about.

What worries me about the Bill is the prospect of the press supporting the NGOs when this Bill becomes law and saying that this is not the iconic Bill it is intended to be but is in fact rather a small Bill that deals with rather limited issues. The fact that that is not true does not stop that perception—and, as we all know, we live in a world of perception rather than reality.

This is a very clever amendment, if I may respectfully say so to the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, and the Government should look at it with enormous care and consider having it, or something like it, at the beginning of the Bill, while taking into account all the points that the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, made about it. I think that she is being somewhat overworried. Speaking as a former judge, nobody in the Family Division, the county court which tries the family cases, or the magistrates in the family proceedings court have the slightest difficulty in understanding what is meant by “best interests”. I would be astonished if those judges referred to in subsection (1) of the proposed new clause would have any difficulty in understanding that. Inevitably these would be seen as vulnerable adults, and “best interests” applies as much to vulnerable adults as it does to children.

The only point I will make, to take up what the noble Lord just said about the contrasts between subsections (1) of Amendment 1A and Amendment 1, where you have “and” in one and “or” in another, is that that is untidy. However, I am also concerned, as I said at Second Reading, about the word “exploitation”. If we are to have that word, it needs to be adjusted to a reference to whichever of the subsequent clauses deals with the definition of exploitation.

On the subject of those rather technical matters, this is a very interesting idea, and I urge the Government to look at it with great care. If they put something like this in, it would lay to rest the criticisms that the NGOs and then the press will make, which will have a devastating effect on what is a very good Bill. It would be very clever to put it in.