Crime and Policing Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 27th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge]

247A: After Clause 55, insert the following new Clause—
“Definition of modern slavery exploitation: orphanage trafficking(1) Section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is amended as follows.(2) After subsection (6) insert—“Orphanage trafficking(7) The person is a child who has been recruited into a residential care institution overseas for the purpose of financial gain and exploitation.”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would expand the definition of exploitation under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to include children who have been recruited into residential care institutions that engage in orphanage trafficking.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, the proposed new clause in my Amendment 247A would expand the definition of exploitation under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to include children who have been recruited into residential care institutions that engage in orphanage trafficking. One privilege, and benefit, of being a Member of this House—or indeed of the other—is the fascinating people whom one meets and finding out about issues that I do not think everybody would always understand.

It was only last week at the annual general meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery that I discovered that, during the passage of this Bill in the other place, my right honourable friend Dame Karen Bradley and Sarah Champion had put down an amendment, which is being mirrored here, about orphanage trafficking. That had not come across my radar, even though I have been—I declare my interest—the chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. As I say, it was not something that I had been aware of, so I tabled this amendment. By some chance, earlier this week, I met Dame—no, not Dame, sorry, I have elevated her; I met Claire Wright MBE. She is a patron of a very good charity called Hope and Homes for Children. She was talking to me about orphanage trafficking and I said that I had put down an amendment. We got into a discussion with my noble friend Lady Sugg, who I see here in her place, so she also heard about this. It just goes to show what can happen.

Orphanage trafficking is a form of child trafficking defined as

“the recruitment or transfer of children into orphanages, or any residential care facility … for a purpose of exploitation … or profit. It involves both ‘acts’ and ‘purposes of exploitation’ that meet the definition of child trafficking under the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons”.

As I have said, it is a little-known crime here in the UK, but it is estimated that around 5 million children worldwide are living in residential institutions, which exist not to help, support and educate the children but to make profits from charitable donations and something that I had not come across before called “voluntourism”—a form of tourism in which travellers participate in voluntary work. Australia has been in the lead with this and was the first country to legislate to outlaw this crime.

Child trafficking into institutions is something that has been going on and is linked to the funding of orphanages through private donations, volunteer tourism, as I have just mentioned, mission trips and other forms of fundraising. It is estimated that US Christian organisations alone donate approximately $3.3 billion to residential care each year. The popular practice of orphanage volunteering—people from high-income countries travelling abroad hoping to help children living in orphanages, with every good will in the world—also serves to provide a continual income for the orphanage as well as reduced labour costs for the care of the children. There is, however, a grim downside to this. Although often well intentioned, these sources of financial and in-kind support undermine national efforts to support broader child protection and social welfare systems by creating a parallel system without official oversight and accountability. They also create a marketplace that can incentivise the expansion of existing orphanages and the establishment of new ones, with the supply of funding and resources into orphanages increasing the demand for children to be in them.

There is evidence of children being deliberately recruited from vulnerable families to fill spaces in orphanages, under the guise of better care and access to education. Once trafficked into those orphanages, children are then vulnerable to neglect, abuse and exploitation. Orphanages that are run for profit have been found to operate under extremely poor conditions to drive down care costs, with evidence pointing to children being kept deliberately malnourished to encourage further donations, forced to interact with and perform for visitors, or forced to beg for financial donations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank everyone who contributed to this short but vital debate on an issue, which, speaking personally, I was not tremendously well aware of before looking at the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Randall. Many noble Lords have commented that it is the hard work of people such as Claire Wright and others that has brought to light this pernicious activity or—to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—this evil trade.

As the noble Lord, Lord Randall of Uxbridge, has explained, Amendment 247A seeks to include so-called orphanage trafficking within the meaning of exploitation under Section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act. I know the noble Lord has concerns about modern slavery and trafficking in his wider work. I pay tribute to his work as chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation and the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery for highlighting this evil activity and the wider concerns around modern slavery.

As the noble Lord described, in our case, concerns about orphanage tourism would be about volunteers from the UK visiting orphanages overseas, fuelling this activity and contributing to a cycle of harm and exploitation of children. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester made a very relevant point: a lot of it is done in good faith. However, it can be undermined and exploited by those who are acting in bad faith.

I make it very clear to all noble Lords who spoke in the debate—the noble Baronesses, Lady Sugg and Lady Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville, the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, the noble Lords, Lord Polak and Lord Randall, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, on the Opposition Front Bench—that the Government share the same concerns. That is why the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office provides travel advice warning British nationals of the risk of volunteering with children and highlighting how volunteer visitors may unknowingly contribute to child exploitation and trafficking. The advice that the FCDO gives signposts travellers to the global standard for volunteering, which helps organisations provide responsible volunteering. By adopting the global standard, organisations commit to promoting child-safe volunteering in all environments, which includes not facilitating visits to orphanages or other institutional care facilities.

Section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 already recognises the specific vulnerabilities of children and encompasses the exploitation of children for the provision of services of any kind and to enable someone to acquire benefits of any kind, including financial gain. Therefore, orphanage trafficking is already captured by the broad terms of the existing legislation. It is fair to say that the noble Lord, Lord Randall, anticipated that that may be the tenor of my contribution.

I point out to noble Lords that on 16 July this year, the Home Office launched a public call for evidence on how the Government can improve the process of identifying victims of modern slavery, human trafficking and exploitation. The call for evidence closed on 8 October, and the Home Office is now analysing responses received. A report summarising the key findings and themes from the call for evidence responses will be published in due course. Of course, the Home Office will consider the evidence gathered to explore any further changes that can be made to improve the identification of victims.

We are seeking to introduce new modern slavery legislation as part of our efforts to review and improve the modern slavery system. This new legislation will enable us to clearly articulate the UK’s responsibilities under international law regarding modern slavery, allowing us to reduce opportunities for misuse while ensuring the right protection for those who need it.

I make no commitments here to your Lordships’ Committee, but that may well be to an opportunity to revisit some of the issues raised in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, floated the suggestion of a wider round table; I will certainly take that back to colleagues and discuss it.

For the reasons I have outlined about Section 3 of the Modern Slavery Act already capturing orphanage trafficking in the broad terms, we do not believe it is necessary to amend Section 3 any further, as the conduct in question is already captured. In light of this explanation, and hoping that it does not disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Randall, and other noble Lords too much, I hope he will be content to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has taken part in this debate. As I said at the beginning of my contribution, one of the many benefits of this place is having people who know much more than I do about a subject and who are certainly much more eloquent. Everybody who spoke after me fit that description. It was extremely good to have the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Manchester pointing out that it is not every orphanage, and so forth.

However, it is an important issue. My friend—I call her that because we work very closely together—the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, is right: we did not spot this in our debates during the passage of the Modern Slavery Act, but that is because modern slavery in all its forms is always developing; the traffickers and exploiters are always looking at something new.

I am very grateful for what the Minister said. If I could predict the lottery numbers as well as I can predict ministerial responses, I would be a very rich man. We will come back to this, not necessarily in this Bill, but we should be looking at it. It would be good if we could perhaps at some stage get a Minister—they are very busy at the moment with this Bill and goodness knows how many other things—to meet the lady we mentioned and others, just to get an idea of the scale of it. But there is so much of this exploitation—we have only to look at Ukraine and the children who are being trafficked into Russia. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 247A withdrawn.

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 8th September 2025 Lords Chamber

It is long overdue for migrant fishers to be properly recognised as workers and to be able to access the rights that UK workers are entitled to. A report along the lines set out in the amendment would be an important and very necessary step in achieving that and righting a wrong that is invisible to all but those who suffer from it.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation and chairman of the Task Force Trust, which I will come on to later. I extend my best wishes to those mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord German, who are not able to be here because of illness, and wish them well.

I support the amendments on the right to work, particularly for domestic workers and those in the NRM. I have been an advocate of this for some time. Call me psychic, but I do not think the Government will accede to this for the very reason the noble Lord, Lord German, gave: the pull factor—although that has never been proved—or whatever.

In my capacity as chairman of the Task Force Trust, we have had a very interesting set of projects through Action Asylum—I would be very happy to show the Minister an evaluation report we got from the University of Nottingham—that get asylum seekers and refugees to do voluntary work, particularly in the environment field: things such as beach cleans, tree planting and a lot of other similar things. This is so important because it has been shown that, in local communities that are not always the most keen on what they perceive asylum seekers to be, they see them as real people, they see them as families and they see them doing things. It has been great for cohesion, but also a great thing for the asylum seekers themselves, to make them feel valued and part of the community, and it has helped their mental health. I think it is something that should be looked at more. As I said, I would be very happy to pass on a copy of this evaluation report from the University of Nottingham that shows the value of it.

There are other projects I have been aware of. For example, the Marylebone Cricket Club has a foundation which has been getting asylum seekers to play cricket. The Saracens Foundation has also involved refugees and so on into sports. I cannot help feeling that this is the way forward—at a time when we know full well that there are frictions out there in our communities—to make sure that they realise we are talking about actual people.

It is a lateish hour and there are plenty more speakers. I just say to my noble friend Lady Lawlor, on her amendment, I think the question of driving licences for these people is a valid one, but it is slightly discriminatory to say it is just for overseas people. There are plenty of other people around. It may be that she thought it was a cunning way to get the issue raised, but I do not think this is really part of this. With that, I will sit down, but I am very happy to meet the Minister, or pass him this report, because I think it is a very valuable idea in terms of community cohesion.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise to offer Green group support for all the amendments in this group, except for Amendment 154A, and to express the greatest sympathy with those who are not able to be with us when we would like them to be. It is also terribly disappointing given that this is such an important group of amendments for addressing essential issues affecting some of the most vulnerable people in our society, as a result of our immigration law.

I will address two related amendments: Amendment 151 from the noble Lord, Lord German, and others, and Amendment 155A, both of which address points on what is known for short as the “lift the ban” campaign. It is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Randall, on this. Indeed, last week, I spoke with the Minister in Oral Questions about suggestions from the Refugee Council to allow people who are most likely to be given asylum status the right to work. This is a broader step.

Giving people the right to work as they seek asylum would, of course, empty the asylum hotels. That is one way of doing it, but the arguments for it extend beyond that. I note that the Global Compact on Refugees—a UN agreement that we do not hear much about these days, but undoubtedly should—says that refugees should be included in communities from the very beginning, meaning as soon as they arrive. What better way is there to include people in communities than to allow them to work? The noble Lord, Lord Randall, was just saying that voluntary work is great, but to enable people to support themselves, support their families and contribute to societies is surely better.

I will just draw on a little history. I am coming up to six years in your Lordships’ House, which makes me not quite a newbie any more by House of Lords standards, so I can go back to the Nationality and Borders Bill of 2022. I just point out that what we are presenting here is something that the House more or less supported, voted for and sent back to the other place. Amendment 30 of the Nationality and Borders Bill on Report was to change the Immigration Act 1971 to give asylum seekers the right to work after six months. It was proposed and the vote was called by the noble Baroness, Lady Stroud, backed by the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister, Lady Ludford and Lady Meacher. Ten Conservatives and 32 Labour Members voted for that amendment, so we are not really going out on a limb here with these suggestions to allow people to work after three months or at least to review the possibility of six months.

A Times leading article from 16 December 2021 also called for—I emphasise that this was the Times—asylum seekers to be given the right to work after six months. I may not say this terribly often, but I entirely agree with the Times where it says:

“Enforced idleness is a waste of initiative and wealth”.


It notes that, at the time, the Migration Advisory Committee opposed the ban on asylum seekers working and the leading article suggested that they should be able to work in shortage occupations. This Times notes that, as the noble Lord, Lord German, said:

“Britain’s policy is more restrictive than that of EU member states”.


As the noble Lord also said, it

“would have no impact on the aggregated numbers of people granted asylum”.

I finish by quoting the Times’ conclusion:

“it would help the economy, reward enterprise and better integrate migrants into British society. A policy that is humane and beneficial for all concerned ought to be grasped”.

When we think about the way in which our immigration debate is going at the moment, it is worth thinking about how far we have moved in the wrong direction. Let us head back in a humane, just and sensible direction.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, has set out an overwhelming case for Amendment 154, on the fishing industry. It is worth going back to some research from the University of Nottingham Rights Lab from 2021. I do not think there is any evidence that the situation has improved since then. Some 35% of fishers reported experiencing regular physical violence, including racial abuse and sexual violence. Their average pay was £3.51 an hour—one-third of the minimum wage; 19% were working in conditions comparable to forced labour; and 60% reported shifts of a minimum of 16 hours. When we think of the conditions to which the noble Lord referred, one in three were working more than 20-hour shifts, and 100% from outside the EEA were on the visas we are talking about.

Anti-social Behaviour and Shoplifting

Lord Randall of Uxbridge Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hope I can reassure my noble friend and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, that poverty is an important issue for this Government. If there are trends in the type of theft that is occurring, such as theft of baby milk, that will indicate some element of poverty-related theft. But we have to tackle poverty holistically, looking at a range of measures on social welfare, housing and the support we are giving through minimum wage increases and other things to ensure that we can help raise people out of poverty. The Government have a target to lift the poverty level. But that still does not excuse theft, which has to be at the heart of this Government’s approach. Shop theft is a key responsibility of mine at the Home Office and we will bring forward legislative measures, if supported by both Houses, to tackle it.

[Lord Randall of Uxbridge (Con)]

My Lords, having spent most of my working life working in a shop, I welcome the protections for shop workers and the Minister’s comments about the seriousness of shoplifting and crime. What encouragement can he give to law enforcement officers to also take this seriously?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The 2014 Act that changed the threshold and put a £200 threshold on shop theft did not change the law, but it changed the approach that law enforcement officers took: thefts under £200 were seen as thefts that we did not need to respond to or go out to. I regard that as unacceptable, which is why we are changing the law to abolish that £200 threshold to allow police to focus on the issue. Neighbourhood policing will help that. The shop workers’ defence and the aggravated offence of attacks on a shop worker are there to protect shop workers who are upholding the law in shops as the first form of defence. I have been a member of the shop workers’ union for 44 years. This is an important issue to the union—it has campaigned on it for 20 years—and it is an important issue for both Houses to recognise. I look forward to taking legislation through this House in due course.